It will be a battle of two titans in the top four as the Kolkata Knight Riders will take on the Lucknow Super Giants at the Eden Garden in a doubleheader on Sunday. As both teams come from a loss in their previous clashes, they will be looking to strengthen their place in the points table and stamp their authority over each other. KKR faltered in their last encounter against the five-time former champions Chennai Super Kings in a low-scoring match. LSG on the other hand, were stunned by the Delhi Capitals on Friday.
The KL Rahul-led side will seek consistency from their batting order after a miserable performance against the Capitals. They will also be backing up their young finisher Ayush Badoni who helped LSG breathe easily after their foreign lineup of Quinton De Kock, Nicholas Pooran and Marcus Stoinis failed to deliver. Left-hander Devdutt Padikkal has also looked off-colour this season while their star bowler Mayank Yadav will miss out too.
As for KKR, who had a similar last match against CSK, they will be counting on their customary opening stand from Sunil Narine with Phil Salt alongside him. While their bowling unit has been decent so far, they will be looking to replicate their previous stints of 200+ scores which they posted versus Sunrisers Hyderabad and the Capitals. Meanwhile, Rinku Singh will be a star attraction as he enjoys batting against LSG and has a good record against them.
KKR won their previous showing at their home ground against SRH in their first match and will be backed by a massive crowd. It will be interesting to see how the LSG will rise to challenge against the hosts.
LSG likely XI vs KKR if batting first
Quinton de Kock, KL Rahul (c/wk), Devdutt Padikkal, Marcus Stoinis, Nicholas Pooran, Deepak Hooda, Ayush Badoni, Krunal Pandya, Ravi Bishnoi, Naveen-Ul-Haq, Yash Thakur.
LSG likely XI vs KKR if bowling first
Quinton De Kock, KL Rahul (c/wk), Devdutt Padikkal, Nicholas Pooran, Marcus Stoinis, Ayush Badoni, Mohsin Khan, Krunal Pandya, Ravi Bishnoi, Navneen-Ul-Haq, Yash Thakur.
Impact Players: Mohsin Khan, Deepak Hooda, Manimaran Siddharth, Amit Mishra, Matt Henry
KKR likely XI vs LSG if batting first
Phil Salt (wk), Sunil Narine, Angkrish Raghuvanshi, Shreyas Iyer (c), Venkatesh Iyer, Nitish Rana, Rinku Singh, Andre Rusell, Vaibhav Arora, Mitchell Starc, Varun Chakravarthy
KKR likely XI vs LSG if bowling first
Phil Salt (wk), Sunil Narine, Angkrish Raghuvanshi, Shreyas Iyer (c), Venkatesh Iyer, Rinku Singh, Andre Russell, Anukul Roy, Vaibhav Arora, Mitchell Starc, Varun Chakravarthy.
Impact Players: Anukul Roy, Vaibhav Arora, Ramandeep Singh, Suyash Sharma
Head-to-head record
The Super Giants have dominated the two-time former champions in their previous three showings by winning all of them. The last time they met was at this very venue where Lucknow stole a narrow one-run victory last year. KKR will be looking to break the streak of losses as they take on the Giants in their fifth match of the season.
Pitch Report.
The Eden Gardens is batting friendly track and likely to favour pacers in the initial stages of the game. In the first few matches, the spinners didn’t get much assistance from the surface while the pacers also get hammered all around the ground.
Win prediction
The Google Win Predictors is slightly inclined towards the Kolkata Knight Riders at 54% while the LSG are at 46%, showing that it can be anyone’s match.