After ascending to the top of the table, Kolkata Knight Riders will look to extend their dominance on home turf against the Mumbai Indians at the Eden Gardens on Friday. While MI managed to end their 4-match losing streak against the Sunrisers Hyderabad in their last encounter, KKR thrashed the Lucknow Super Giants in a dominating fashion.
The Knight Riders have almost cemented themselves for a playoffs spot with 16 points in the bank. On the other hand, MI are out of contention for the top four.
As the five-time former champions look to salvage pride against the fiery KKR, they will have to overcome the colossal opening unit of Phil Salt and Sunil Narine. Their bowling unit backed by youngster Harshit Rana and mystery-spinner Varun Chakravarthy also played a crucial role in dethroning the batting order of the Super Giants in the last match. As for MI, their star batter Suryakumar Yadav scored a century in the last match and will also be up for the challenge against the home favourites.
KKR likely XI (if batting first)
Phil Salt, Sunil Narine, Shreyas Iyer (c), Ramandeep Singh, Venkatesh Iyer, Angkrish Raghuvanshi, Andre Russell, Rinku Singh, Mitchell Starc, Harshit Rana, Varun Chakravarthy
KKR likely XI (if bowling first)
Phil Salt, Sunil Narine, Shreyas Iyer (c), Ramandeep Singh, Venkatesh Iyer, Andre Russell, Rinku Singh, Mitchell Starc, Harshit Rana, Varun Chakravarthy, Vaibhav Arora
Impact Players: Vaibhav Arora, Angkrish Raghuvanshi, Manish Pandey, Anukul Roy
MI likely XI (if batting first)
Ishan Kishan, Rohit Sharma, Suryakumar Yadav, Tilak Verma, Naman Dhir, Nehal Wadhera, Hardik Pandya (c), Tim David, Anshul Kamboj, Piyush Chawla, Jasprit Bumrah
MI likely XI (if bowling first)
Ishan Kishan, Rohit Sharma, Suryakumar Yadav, Tilak Verma, Naman Dhir, Hardik Pandya (c), Tim David, Anshul Kamboj, Piyush Chawla, Jasprit Bumrah, Nuwan Thushara
Impact Players: Nuwan Thushara, Nehal Wadhera, Romario Shephard, Dewald Brevis
Head-to-head
Both teams have met each other on 33 occasions where MI have clearly dominated the head-to-head with 23 wins. However, it was the Knight Riders who won the last encounter this season.
Pitch Report
The Eden Gardens is expected to witness a high-scoring encounter being a batting paradise. As the venue hosts its seventh match of the season, it has recorded 4 wins batting second and only 2 wins batting first in the first six matches. While the average first-inning score is nearly 200 runs at this venue, Punjab Kings managed to chase down 262 runs against KKR this season.
Fantasy XI
Phil Salt, Sunil Narine, Shreyas Iyer (c), Suryakumar Yadav, Tilak Verma, Venkatesh Iyer, Andre Russell, Piyush Chawla, Jasprit Bumrah, Varun Chakravarthy, Mitchell Starc
