The Kolkata Knight Riders, sitting on top of the table welcome the Gujarat Lions at the Eden Gardens, Kolkata. While the Knights have notched up two back to back wins after losing two games on the trot and are looking almost certain to make the playoffs, the Gujarat Lions, the early pace setters in the tournament seemed to have lost their way suddenly losing three back to back games prior to their visit to the Eden Gardens. The top two teams in the IPL face off in a crunch tie, while the Knights will look to continue their winning form, Gujarat will look to be back to their best and upset the high-flying Knights and silence the Eden crowd.
Kolkata faces Gujarat, debutants in the tournament for the first time in the history of the IPL. While Kolkata has looked like a well-oiled machine, Gujarat meanwhile has been a breath of fresh air. Gambhir has led the Knight Riders from the front with his performances with the bat and the bowling has always been Kolkata’s strong suit.
The Gujarat batting side is one the best in the IPL but has strangely looked out of sorts in the last three. Their bowling though has been very compact and has seldom leaked runs.
Let’s see how the Knights and the Lions could possibly line up for this game.
Kolkata Knight Riders
Batsmen: Robin Uthappa and Gautam Gambhir, the opening pair of the Knight Riders have been in outstanding form. If not both, at least one has looked to anchor the innings. Manish Pandey missed a couple of games due to health issues and is yet to fire with the bat this season and KKR fans will hope the talented batsman from Karnataka will come up with the goods against Gujarat if the opening pair fail.
Suryakumar Yadav, the vice-captain of the Kolkata outfit has had to be content with playing little cameos with the bat, barring a match winning innings against the Supergiants. Yusuf Pathan played a brilliant innings at the Chinnaswamy and KKR fans will hope the Pathan keeps on firing against the Lions too.
All-Rounders: Shakib Al-Hasan and Andre Russell are both regarded as great all-rounders in the International circuit. While Russell is topping the charts with 13 wickets under his belt and is wearing the Purple Cap, the Calypso giant has also entertained with the bat hitting huge sixes.
Shakib hasn’t been up to the mark with the bat this season, but the Bangladeshi all-rounder has been hard to put away and has an economy of 6.5.
Bowlers: Umesh Yadav and Morne Morkel will share the pace bowling attack with Russell. Umesh has proved to be very expensive in the last couple of games and while he has picked up wickets, he has also gone for runs.
Morkel too has also been among the wickets. The pace attack of Russell, Yadav and Morkel have 30 wickets among them and the success of the pacers is one of the many reasons for the Knight Riders topping the tables.
Sunil Narine had proved really expensive at the Chinnaswamy and had been rested against the Kings XI and the man from the Caribbean might make his way back to playing 11 at the expense of the veteran Aussie, Brad Hogg. Piyush Chawla has been a regular for Kolkata and the leggie is likely to start against the Lions.
Probable Playing 11: Robin Uthappa (wk), Gautam Gambhir (C), Manish Pandey, Shakib Al-Hasan, Yusuf Pathan, Suryakumar Yadav, Andre Russell, Umesh Yadav, Piyush Chawla, Sunil Narine, Morne Morkel.
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Gujarat Lions
Batsmen: The fiery opening pair of McCullum and Smith have misfired in the last three games for Gujarat Lions and the dip in form of the opening pair seemed to have hurt the Gujarat’s winning momentum. Given the quality of these two, they are likely to continue with roles of opening the batting for the Lions and Raina will hope that they fire against Kolkata.
Next to the batting crease is the Gujarat captain himself and Raina, who hadn’t been at his very best with the bat this season will look for a big score against the Knight Riders. Aaron Finch, was the only silver lining in a very dismal batting display against the Sunrisers scoring 51 not out and Gujarat will have their hopes pinned on the Aussie for another great innings. Dinesh Karthik, the wicket keeper with his wealth of experience has been handy with the bat and will look come good at Eden Gardens.
All-Rounders: With the likes of Faulkner, Bravo, and Jadeja. Gujarat has probably the best set of all-rounders. Faulkner might miss out against the Knight Riders, Jadeja and Bravo are likely to start. While Bravo has been pretty good with the ball in his hand he is yet to fire with the bat and that will be a concern for the Gujarat management.
Jadeja has been very mediocre with both bat and ball this IPL and will look to be at his very best against the Knights. The Eden pitch has always favoured the spinners and Jadeja will come in handy with his slow left-arm orthodox spin.
Bowlers: Praveen Kumar has been very economical with the ball, but it is his wickets column that has been the concern, the pacer has only picked up 3 wickets in 10 games. Dhawal Kulkarni is likely to partner him and the Mumbai-based medium pacer will partner Praveen Kumar with the new ball.
Given the tendency of the Eden pitch to turn, Pravin Tambe or Sarabjit Ladda might be preferred over Pradeep Sangwan to partner Shivil Kaushik. Among the two it is more likely for Tambe to make a comeback in the playing 11 for Gujarat against the Knight Riders
Probable Playing 11: Brendon McCullum, Dwayne Smith, Suresh Raina (C), Aaron Finch, Dinesh Karthik (wk), Ravindra Jadeja, Dwayne Bravo, Praveen Kumar, Dhawal Kulkarni, Shivil Kaushik, Pravin Tambe.
