(Cricket news) KKR will look to bounce back after a disappointing loss to RCB but on the other hand Punjab Kings will be full of confidence after their swashbuckling batting display against RCB in the first match. PBKS management will welcome Kagiso Rabada in the playing XI as he could be the X-factor that their bowling line up was missing.
KKR in the last match adopted a very strange game plan as each and every batsman lost their wicket to sceptical shots considering the match situation. Although the result didn't go in their favour, they stayed true to their playbook, hitting more boundaries than RCB. The one positive Brendon McCullum can take from the last match, was his side never giving up attitude as they almost defended a low score courtesy of Umesh Yadav and Tim Southee. Knight Riders head coach Brendon McCullum said that “the allrounder's shoulder was sore after he dived near the boundary”. If Russell doesn't recover in time, then KKR could instead call up Mohammad Nabi or Chamika Karunaratne.
PBKS will be high on confidence after their great batting display against RCB in the first match. They will be further boosted by Kagiso Rabada who is out of quarantine and trained with the team after having participated in the ODI series at home against Bangladesh on the other hand, Jonny Bairstow, is unavailable as he is yet to complete quarantine upon arrival from the Caribbean. Most of the eyes will be on an interesting sub plot will be Andre Russell vs Odeon Smith, Russell is still the gold standard of T20 cricket while Smith is the latest big-hitting allrounder from the Caribbean. Smith idolises Russell and has modelled his game on him and he recently won the T10 league with his idol at Deccan Gladiators in Abu Dhabi. If you see their head to head, Smith has bowled 13 balls to Russell in T20 cricket, keeping him to a mere eight runs while getting him out twice in three innings.
Pitch and weather report: There will be plenty of assistance for the bowlers and it will not be easy for the batters to come and straight away smash fours and sixes. Keeping wickets in hand will be the key to success. Again the dew factor can come into play as the trend of winning the toss and bowling first will continue. The temperature is going to hover around 30 degrees with no chance of rain.
Interesting facts:
- Russell has the edge over Rabada in T20s,he has scored 79 runs off 39 balls at a strike rate of over 200 while being dismissed just once.
- Umesh Yadav has 49 wickets in the powerplay in the IPL at an economy rate of 7.60. Only three bowlers have picked up more wickets than Umesh in the first six overs.
- Sunil Narine has a very strong record against Kings,he has picked up 31 wickets in 21 games at an average of 18.22 and economy rate of seven.
- Harpreet Brar had an economy rate of 6.04 in IPL 2021 which was the best among bowlers who had bowled more than ten overs last season.
- Mayank Agarwal is 51 runs away from completing 4000 runs in T20 cricket .
- Ajinkya Rahane needs just 6 runs away from him to complete 4000 runs in IPL.
Probable XI for KKR:
1 Venkatesh Iyer, 2 Ajinkya Rahane, 3 Shreyas Iyer (capt), 4 Nitish Rana, 5 Sam Billings, 6 Sheldon Jackson (wk), 7 Andre Russell/Chamika Karunaratne/Mohammad Nabi, 8 Sunil Narine, 9 Tim Southee, 10 Umesh Yadav, 11 Varun Chakravarthy
Probable XI for PBKS:
1 Shikhar Dhawan, 2 Mayank Agarwal (capt), 3 Bhanuka Rajapaksa (wk), 4 Liam Livingstone, 5 Raj Bawa, 6 M Shahrukh Khan, 7 Odean Smith, 8 Harpreet Brar, 9 Arshdeep Singh, 10 Kagiso Rabada, 11 Rahul Chahar
Also read: CSK lose 2nd game in a row while LSG open IPL account
