Dubai: Kolkata Knight Riders and Sunrisers Hyderabad would be looking to lock their maiden points when they face off against each other in the Indian Premier League on Saturday (September 26) in Abu Dhabi. While KKR lost to Mumbai Indians, SRH surrendered in front of Royal Challengers Bangalore in their opening encounters.
Besides tasting defeats in their tournament openers, the one similarity both the teams have was failures with the bat. Things were much worse for SRH, as they lost eight wickets for 32 runs. From 122/2, they were bowled out for 153, their batsmen falling like ninepins chasing a not so stiff total.
The top three SRH batsmen combined to score 101 runs, while those from No. 4 to 11 could manage only 37 together. Since Kane Williamson is out due to injury, the middle order batting for SRH appears weak and inexperienced.
KKR on the other hand represented the perfect example of what happens when players are kept away from the game. Pat Cummins, the most expensive foreign buy in the history of the IPL conceded almost 50 in three overs. While Dinesh Karthik, the captain, stressed not to read too much into the Australia quick’s performance, it isn’t something that could be slipped underneath the table. With the bat, Karthik, Nitish Rana got starts and being able to convert such starts is a box that requires a tick earliest.
Few approaching achievements by KKR and SRH: Andre Russell needs 89 runs to complete 1500 IPL runs, Siddarth Kaul needs one wicket to complete 50 IPL wickets, Sunil Narine needs five sixes to complete 50 IPL sixes and Sandeep Sharma needs five wickets to complete 100 IPL wickets.
Squads:
Kolkata Knight Riders: Dinesh Karthik (Captain), Shivam Mavi, Sandeep Warrier, Kuldeep Yadav, Eoin Morgan, Pat Cummins, Sunil Narine, Nikhil Naik, Manimaran Siddharth, Andre Russell, Lockie Ferguson, Prasidh Krishna, Shubman Gill, Nitish Rana, Siddhesh Lad, Kamlesh Nagarkoti, Rinku Singh, Varun Chakravarthy, Tom Banton, Chris Green, Rahul Tripathi, Ali Khan.
Sunrisers Hyderabad: Kane Williamson, David Warner (Captain), Jonny Bairstow, Manish Pandey, Mohammad Nabi, Priyam Garg, Vijay Shankar, Wriddhiman Saha, Virat Singh, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Basil Thampi, Abhishek Sharma, Billy Stanlake, Sandeep Sharma, Shahbaz Nadeem, Shreevats Goswami, Siddarth Kaul, K Khaleel Ahmed, T Natarajan, Jason Holder, Bavanaka Sandeep, Fabian Allen, Abdul Samad, Sanjay Yadav, Rashid Khan.
