Kolkata Knight Riders and Sunrisers Hyderabad have both lost their respective first games of the season and are the only remaining teams yet to register a victory against their names in this season’s Indian Premier League. One of them is sure to register a couple of points on the table tonight and both the teams will be determined from preventing the either to achieve the desired result.

KKR convincingly lost their first game of the season to Mumbai Indians by 49 runs which exposed the uneven balance in their squad. Their bowling department was decent on their first outing, with young fast-bowler Shivam Mavi and experienced campaigner Sunil Narine being the standout players. If KKR are to win this match, their batting department needs to do a lot better than they have in the previous match. Talent is not the question when it comes to the KKR lineup, however the ability to find the right balance and deliver individual performances is key and that would be the real test for captain Dinesh Karthik.

SRH would be disappointed by their loss to RCB. It was a loss by just 10 runs which could have been completely different had all-rounder Mitchell Marsh not got injured in the very first over of his bowling spell. His injury meant that SRH had to do without their experienced all-rounder for the remaining of the bowling innings. Mitchell Marsh was not fit to bat, however when the 8th wicket fell for the Sunrisers, Marsh made his way to the pitch to try and help his team chase down the target. The effort from Marsh was in vain and it also aggravated his ankle injury ruling him out of the entire tournament. All-rounder Mohammad Nabi will be expected to come in for Marsh with Kane Williamson struggling for full fitness. Opener Jonny Bairstow impressed with his half-century in the first game for SRH and he will be looking to emulate a similar performance on his birthday today.

Injury Updates:

  • Mitchell Marsh is out of the tournament and Jason Holder has been named as his replacement. Sunrisers will need to make a forced change, and there could be a chance for Mohammad Nabi, who can give them four overs on a good day and two or three on a bad day. With the bat, he’s as calm as they come and should bolster an inexperienced middle order. Of course, it could be a tricky call to make if Kane Williamson has fully recovered from his quad injury.
  • The Knight Riders don’t have any injury concerns, having already signed Ali Khan up for Harry Gurney. Everyone is fit and available to play.

Predicted Lineups:

Kolkata Knight Riders: 1 Sunil Narine, 2 Shubman Gill, 3 Dinesh Karthik (capt, wk), 4 Nitish Rana, 5 Eoin Morgan, 6 Andre Russell, 7 Nikhil Naik, 8 Pat Cummins, 9 Kuldeep Yadav, 10 Shivam Mavi, 11 Sandeep Warrier

Sunrisers Hyderabad: 1 Jonny Bairstow (wk), 2 David Warner (capt), 3 Manish Pandey, 4 Priyam Garg, 5 Mohammad Nabi, 6 Vijay Shankar, 7 Abhishek Sharma, 8 Rashid Khan, 9 Bhuvneshwar Kumar, 10 Sandeep Sharma, 11 T Natarajan

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TOPICS: david warner Dinesh Karthik KKR SRH