Chennai: Historically, Kolkata Knight Riders has been probably the favourite opponent for Mumbai Indians in the IPL. Having won nine out of the last 10 meetings, Rohit Sharma’s side always had the upper hand on their eastern counterpart.
On April 13, Eoin Morgan & Co. will look to break the practice when Kolkata Knight Riders meet the defending champions in the Indian Premier League at the MA Chidambaram Stadium on Tuesday.
Though Mumbai will come into this game on the back of a defeat against Royal Challengers Bangalore in the opening game but hasn’t this been a pattern for last few years? The stats also say so as they lost every opening fixture since 2013 but went on to clinch the title.
The Mumbai middle-order failed quite badly against RCB despite a good start. The two new lads on the block Chris Lynn and the lanky seamer Marco Jansen lived up to their expectations fairly well with the burly Aussie muscling a 28-ball 49 while the young South African registered 2/28 on his debut.
However, somehow they could manage to put points on the board but considering their prowess in the tournament, these things shouldn’t bother them much. While it will be interesting to see whether Quinton de Kock, who is out of the quarantine period makes it to the squad ahead of the in-form Lynn.
AS for the Knight Riders things looked a bit different to the last year. Under the leadership of Morgan, they performed quite well in the first game. Nitish Rana continued his last season’s form with a brilliant 80 while Shakib Al Hassan proved his worth of being picked ahead of Sunil Narine in the playing XI. Andre Russell though had an off-day last time around, but you can’t predict anything the Muscleman from Jamaica.
