(Cricket news) Knight Riders came into the UAE leg knowing that they had to win 6 out of 7 matches but now they have a realistic chance of making the playoffs. With Mumbai tied on points with them, they can’t breathe easy as they need to win their remaining matches as well. On the other hand even if Punjab even win their remaining matches, chances of qualification look grim as they need to depend upon certain results going their way.
KKR will most likely be without Andre Russell as he might be nursing a hamstring injury, the KKR management will stick to the same line up mostly. KKR will be hoping that the two openers give them a good start as Shubman Gill averages more than 72 runs against PBKS. This season Rahul Tripathi has been a revelation for KKR, scoring 315 runs at an average of 35 runs and same can be said for Nitish Rana he too has scored 280 runs this season. Sunil Narine loves playing against Punjab, he's picked up 30 wickets against them and also has his best IPL figures against them also. On the contrary Rahul has the edge over Narine so it will be an interesting matchup to see. One area of concern for KKR going ahead in the tournament might be the form of Eoin Morgan.
PBKS will be without Chris Gayle as he has left the bio bubble due to fatigue and won't be available for the remaining matches. The common theme with Punjab this season has been their over reliance on the openers as the middle order batsmen have let the team down. The PBKS management need to find a quick solution to the problem as last match Aiden Markram showed some stability in the middle overs. Mohammed Shami and Arshdeep Singh will be assigned with the task of breaking the Gill – Iyer partnership as they need to put pressure on KKR’s somewhat fragile middle order batsmen. One of the key match ups could be Shami vs Tripathi. Shami has the edge over him as he has dismissed him 2 times in 18 balls conceding only 15 runs in the process
Head to head: KKR 19 – 9 PBKS, the last time they met KKR won comfortably by 5 wickets as they were able to break their four match losing streak.
Pitch and weather report: Dubai international Stadium has been a better batting venue compared to others as we can expect some runs to be scored, with the evenings being cooler captains will most likely want to chase on this surface. The temperature might be fluctuating between 28-30 degrees as dew factor may come into play. There is no chance of rain as of now.
Interesting facts:
- Lockie Ferguson has surprisingly delivered two fastest deliveries in IPL 2021 at 152.75 and 152.74 kph
- This could be Nicolas Pooran’s 200th T20 game
- Dinesh Karthik is just 16 runs away from 4000 runs in IPL and will become the 11th batsmen to do so
- KKR love facing PBKS as they have won 19 times which is most against any other franchise
Also read: Playoffs means opportunity to manage workloads, but won't be too experimental: Fleming
Probable XI for KKR:
1 Shubman Gill, 2 Venkatesh Iyer, 3 Rahul Tripathi, 4 Nitish Rana, 5 Eoin Morgan (capt), 6 Dinesh Karthik (wk), 7 Sunil Narine, 8 Tim Southee, 9 Ben Cutting/Lockie Ferguson, 10 Prasidh Krishna, 11 Varun Chakravarthy
Probable XI for PBKS:
1 KL Rahul (capt, wk), 2 Mayank Agarwal/Mandeep Singh, 3 Aiden Markram, 4 Nicholas Pooran, 5 Deepak Hooda/Shahrukh Khan, 6 Fabian Allen, 7 Harpreet Brar, 8 Ravi Bishnoi, 9 Nathan Ellis, 10 Arshdeep Singh, 11 Mohammed Shami
