Pune: Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) will take on Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) in a must-win IPL game here at MCA Stadium on Saturday.
Both Kolkata and Hyderabad need to win all their remaining matches to keep their chance of making it to the playoffs. With five wins in 12 outings, KKR are placed seventh on the points table, while SRH are in the sixth place with five wins to their name in 11 games.
Sunrisers had defeated Knight Riders by seven wickets when the two teams had a face-off earlier inthis season.
KKR will look to back Nitish Rana, Shreyas Iyer, and Andre Russell to pile up miseries on SRH bowlers. Rinku Singh, who played a match-winning knock against Rajasthan Royal, will be the player to watch out for.
Kolkata suffered a huge blow as premier pacer Pat Cummins has been ruled out due to hip injury. Shivam Mavi will likely fill in place of Australian quick. Umesh Yadav, too, missed the last match after pulling his calf muscle. Sunil Narine and Tim Southee will lead the bowling attack. Anukul Roy and Varun Chakaravarthy will lend support form the other end.
SRH will be expecting skipper Kane Williamson to shoulder the responsibility to give a strong start. Youngster Abhishek Sharma can be backed to provide a balance in the top order. The likes of Rahul Tripathi and Aiden Markram too have produced crucial knocks for the team.
Bowling-wise, SRH need a consistency and would want more from pace sensation Umran Malik, Kartik Tyagi, and Fazalhaq Farooqi. Experienced Bhuvneshwar Kumar can inflict wickets in the powerplay to give a breakthrough early in the innings.
Teams:
Kolkata Knight Riders: Aaron Finch, Abhijeet Tomar, Ajinkya Rahane, Baba Indrajith, Nitish Rana, Pratham Singh, Rinku Singh, Shreyas Iyer (c), Ashok Sharma, 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.
Sunrisers Hyderabad: Kane Williamson (c), Abhishek Sharma, Rahul Tripathi, Aiden Markram, Nicholas Pooran, Abdul Samad, Priyam Garg, Vishnu Vinod, Glenn Phillips, R Samarth, Shashank Singh, Romario Shepherd, Marco Jansen, J Suchith, Shreyas Gopal, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Sean Abbott, Kartik Tyagi, Saurabh Tiwary, Fazalhaq Farooqi, Umran Malik, T Natarajan. (UNI)
