KKR vs SRH – Match 8

Two teams that are coming off from a defeat in their previous encounters, would face each other to open their account on the points table tonight.

Mumbai Indians welcomed the most expensive player from the auction in their own style by scoring almost 50 runs in his 3 over spell. But Pat Cummins came back into action and scored a brilliant cameo towards the end of the innings, proving his all round abilities.

The inexperienced Sunrisers middle order failed in the previous outing, but they’d look to rectify that with Mohammad Nabi coming in for the ruled out Mitch Marsh. Jason Holder is in the quarantine period and won’t be available for this fixture tonight. Warner failed to an unlucky runout last time but he’d look to get going along with his most favourite IPL opening partner Bairstow. Pandey at No.3 makes the top order a really destructive one, and enough to win games easily. Their bowling attack, which was the highest rated once, collectively failed as a unit in the last game and would look to tackle the Knight Riders on these slow wickets of Abu Dhabi.

The Knight Riders failed in batting with the highest score being of Cummins, followed by Karthik, who were the only two to score in 30s. With the most destructive middle order, the Knight Riders would like to take that to their advantage against the Sunrisers. The no-nonsense approach of Narine is a much needed one in the powerplay overs, provided he fires. Not just that, his 4 overs have always been very crucial in terms of the economy as well as the wickets. Their only weakness is their inexperienced indian seam bowling and their attack against the Sunrisers top order could make a lot of difference.

Head to Head –

They’ve faced each other 17 times since 2013, with KKR winning 10 of them. Bairstow avgs a 119 against this side and Warner has a highest score of 126 against them. Bhuvi has also been the highest Wicket taker against them. Manish Pandey who used to play for KKR now plays for the SRH.

Probable XIs and why –

KKR – Sunil Narine, Shubhman Gill, Dinesh Karthik(C)(Wk), Nitish Rana, Eoin Morgan, Andre Russell, Nikhil Naik/Rinku Singh, Pat Cummins, Shivam Mavi, Kuldeep Yadav, Sandeep Warrier/Prasidh Krishna

Nikhil Naik failed to make a mark when he got a good opportunity to prove himself, so that could be one of the changes in their team with Rinku Singh or Rahul Tripathi coming into the side. Warrier also was expensive in the last game and Prasidh could come in as well in his place.

SRH – David Warner(C), Johnny Bairstow(Wk), Manish Pandey, Vijay Shankar, Priyam Garg, Abhishek Sharma, Mohammad Nabi/Fabian Allen, Rashid Khan, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Sandeep Sharma, T Natarajan

A forced change with Mitch Marsh being ruled out of the IPL with an ankle injury. One of Nabi or Allen should take his place with Holder currently not available.

Pitch Report –

We are back to Abu Dhabi. Both the pitches have been used on that venue and they are slow wickets with long boundaries. Batsmen would find it difficult to keep going for boundaries so should be satisfied with constant strike rotation. The spinners could cause trouble especially with two quality spinners both sides in Rashid and Narine.

Safe C/VC choices –

Warner, Bairstow, Narine, Russell