Last season Kolkata Knight Riders’ bowlers handed Kings XI Punjab’s batsmen seven single-digit scores in their first meeting in 2016 to set up a six-wicket win in Mohali. The same trend continued at Eden Gardens when Andre Russell took a four-for to successfully defend a total of 164 despite a Glenn Maxwell half-century.
Overall Knight Riders have beaten Kings XI in all seven of their most recent matches in the IPL to set up a dominant 13-6 lead. The record is 6-2 in Kolkata.
Knight Riders have lost Chris Lynn for a “substantial” time, and while that is a loss, it could also mean that Gautam Gambhir and Robin Uthappa are reunited at the top of the order. Their opening partnership has tallied more than 400 runs for three seasons straight. Additionally, fast bowler Umesh Yadav has recovered from his hip and lower back niggles and might well be up for selection. It is also highly likely that Bangladesh allrounder Shakib Al Hasan will make his way back into the playing XI. They also have West Indies batsmen Darren Bravo and Rovman Powell in the reserves.
Ahead of what will be the first IPL game to be played at a re-laid Eden Gardens surface, most of the talk has been about how the venue has become a lot more seamer-friendly. If that is true, New Zealand allrounder Colin de Grandhomme might get a game. A medium-pacer known to extract sideways movement, he also has a batting strike-rate of 171.
Kings XI appear to have no injury worries. They might consider Ishant Sharma in place of Mohit Sharma, but having won both their matches so far in this new season, are likely to retain the same XI.
The likely XIs
Kolkata Knight Riders 1 Gautam Gambhir (capt), 2 Robin Uthappa (wk), 3 Manish Pandey, 4 Shakib Al Hasan, 5 Yusuf Pathan, 6 Suryakumar Yadav, 7 Chris Woakes, 8 Sunil Narine, 9 Kuldeep Yadav, 10 Umesh Yadav/Piyush Chawla, 11 Trent Boult.
Kings XI Punjab 1 Hashim Amla, 2 Manan Vohra, 3 Wriddhiman Saha (wk), 4 Glenn Maxwell (capt), 5 David Miller, 6 Marcus Stoinis, 7 Axar Patel, 8 Mohit Sharma, 9 Sandeep Sharma, 10 Varun Aaron, 11 T Natarajan.
