Mumbai: Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) and Punjab Kings (PBKS), coming into their next match with contrasting confidence, will lock horns on Friday here at the Wankhede Stadium.
Shreyas Iyer-led KKR will look to bounce back after they lost their second match against Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB). They would like to pick some positive points from their first match when they beat defending champions Chennai Super Kings.
In their last match, KKR batsmen played far too many rash shots and fell prey to RCB bowlers, who ensured the chase went down to the wire, despite their batsmen put up a paltry 128 runs batting first. KKR failed to cross the line and suffered a humiliating 3-wicket loss to RCB, who huffed and puffed to go past 128 runs target.
Punjab Kings however beat RCB by 4 wickets, chasing down a mammoth 206 target with an over to spare. So, the team's confidence surely will be on cloud nine. However, they haven't played a match yet at the Wankhede this season compared to KKR, who would like to take confidence out of it and Punjab's poor record against them.
KKR has beaten Punjab 19 times out of 29 meetings they had so far. However, in the last 4 meetings both were on par with two match wins.
KKR openers Ajinkya Rahane and Venkatesh Iyer would look to give a good start after they fell cheaply against RCB. Shreyas will be looking for support from his top-order batters to make the most out of his good form.
Sam Billings, Sheldon Jackson and Andre Russell will look to give cushion to their skipper and Nitish Rana in the middle order. They have the reputation of big hitters and would like to keep their franchise owners happy by taking Punjab bowlers to the cleaners.
In the bowling department, pacers Umesh Yadav and Tim Southee would like to continue giving their best with the ball. Southee, especially, has picked up three wickets against RCB and Umesh has been terrific with the new ball. Spinner Varun Chakravarthy would like to get himself in the groove quickly as he has been off-colour in the tournament so far.
For Punjab, much will depend on how skipper Mayank Agarwal, Shikhar Dhawan and Bhanuka Rajapaksa, flourish against KKR, because they have done adequately well so far.
Odean Smith and Shahrukh Khan would be itching to get some more runs under their belt at the death as they did against RCB, seeing off their side against RCB.
Punjab bowlers including Sandeep Sharma and Arshdeep Singh will be looking to boost their game by bowling tightly, especially after they miserably failed against RCB. Lot also is expected from spin duo Rahul Chahar and Harpreet Brar to make the cut in tomorrow's match.
Teams:
Kolkata Knight Riders: Aaron Finch, Abhijeet Tomar, Ajinkya Rahane, Baba Indrajith, Nitish Rana, Pratham Singh, Rinku Singh, Shreyas Iyer, Ashok Sharma, Pat Cummins, Rasikh Dar, Shivam Mavi, Tim Southee, Umesh Yadav, Varun Chakaravarthy, Aman Khan, Andre Russell, Anukul Roy, Chamika Karunaratne, Mohammed Nabi, Ramesh Kumar, Sunil Narine, Venkatesh Iyer, Sam Billings, Sheldon Jackson.