IPL 2017 Qualifier 2, KKR vs MI: 5 reasons why Kolkata Knight Riders can beat Mumbai Indians

#2 The conditions in Bangalore

Sunil Narine should relish the conditions at the Chinnaswamy stadim

Traditionally a batting paradise, the Chinnaswamy Stadium this year surprised everybody with its dry surface. Until last year runs flooded heavily on this pitch, but this season stroke making has become extremely difficult for the batsmen. The variable bounce and slow surface have in fact become a feature of the Chinnaswamy Stadium this year.

Among the two teams, this slow and dry surface benefits KKR more as they have the perfect squad to exploit these conditions. On this track, an express pace bowler like Coulter-Nile can wreck havoc while KKR have enough depth in the spin department to utilise the conditions to its maximum.

It will be difficult to score against Sunil Narine on this kind of a surface as SRH found out last game. Meanwhile, others like Piyush Chawla and Kuldeep Yadav have the armoury to cause some real trouble with the ball in their hands as well.

The batting order of Mumbai is full of natural hitters and hence they might find it difficult to adapt to these conditions. As Pune displayed in the first qualifier match, Mumbai’s batting order gets restless when boundaries are hard to come by and that’s something they can’t afford to do against as quality as opposition as Kolkata.