Chennai: Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR), buoyed by its ten run win over Sunrisers Hyderabad, will be keen to sustain the momentum, when they take on defending champions Mumbai Indians (MI) in the 14th edition of the IPL T-20 match here on Tuesday.
MI, who suffered a last ball defeat to RCB in the opening match of this edition, will be keen reverse it and register its first win.
KKR skipper Eoin Morgan is unlikely to tinker with the winning combination and will continue with the left-right combination of Nitish Rana and Shubman Gill as both displayed their attacking instincts right from the 'word go.
However, the cause of concern was the middle order when KKR lost a few wickets between the 14 and 18th overs, but still their bowlers rose to the occasion to restrict SRH and win by ten runs.
KKR will look forward to some key contributions by its skipper, apart from the power hitting prowess of Andre Russell. The two time champions have the X-factor in the form of Shakib Al Hasan who provided timely breakthroughs to keep SRH chase under check.
KKR will also been keen to put its record straight as MI always seemed to be its nemesis as the Kolkata have won just one match in the last 12 meetings against MI.
For MI, skipper Rohit Sharma, got a start, but ran himself out against RCB the other day. He needs to stay longer.
His opening partner, Chris Lynn (as regular opener Quinton de-kock in quarantine period), Ishant Kishan, Suryakumar Yadav and big hitter Keiron Pollard lends solidity to the batting line up that also consists of the Pandya Brothers.
But what MI needs is that they have to collectively fire if the five time champion, looking for a hat-trick of titles, notches up its first win of this edition.
Jasprit Bumrah, Trent Boult and left arm seamer Marco Jansen leads the bowling attack backed up by spinners Krunal and Rahul Chahar.
Teams:
KKR: Eoin Morgan (c), Dinesh Karthik, Shubman Gill, Nitish Rana, Tim Seifert, Rinku Singh, Andre Russell, Sunil Narine, Kuldeep Yadav, Shivam Mavi, Lockie Ferguson, Pat Cummins, Kamlesh Nagarkoti, Sandeep Warrier, Prasidh Krishna, Rahul Tripathi, Varun Chakravarthy, Shakib Al Hasan, Sheldon Jackson, Vaibhav Arora, Harbhajan Singh, Karun Nair, Ben Cutting, Venkatesh Iyer, Pawan Negi.
MI: Rohit Sharma (c), Suryakumar Yadav, Anmolpreet Singh, Chris Lynn, Saurabh Tiwary, Dhawal Kulkarni, Jasprit Bumrah, Rahul Chahar, Trent Boult, Mohsin Khan, Hardik Pandya, Jayant Yadav, Kieron Pollard, Krunal Pandya, Anukul Roy, Ishan Kishan, Quinton de Kock, Aditya Tare, Adam Milne, Nathan Coulter Nile, Piyush Chawla, James Neesham, Yudhvir Charak, Marco Jansen, Arjun Tendulkar. (UNI)
