Contrast marks the battle as SRH run into KKR in their campaign opener

Kolkata Knight Riders and Sunrisers Hyderabad - not least their die-hard fans - share an uncanny knack of coherent proposition with each other. You might like Biryani in its revealing and colourful self but the moment the extra spices are traded for aloo, you know you’re in Kolkata. They are the oddities you could never have enough of. 

This time, the venue is not Kolkata, neither is it Hyderabad. Thus the discussion on Biryani and which one is better can wait for the time being and cricket can take over. As both sides gear up to kick start their campaign at the MA Chidambaram Stadium in Chennai, it will also be a battle of two contrasting fortunes which has never been more prudent.

With David Warner and Jonny Bairstow at the top, Sunrisers Hyderabad established a pair like no other. To go with their exploits in the 2019 edition, the SRH duo scored at 8.4 runs per over - the highest among all teams. On the other hand, striking at a run-rate of 7.1 - majorly due to Shubman Gill’s extremely conservative approach - KKR ended up as the slowest starter in the powerplay, even behind Chennai Super Kings. It tells you everything you need to know about their circumspect approach.

The contrast doesn’t end there though. In T20 Cricket, where the importance of powerplay can never be overstated, the Shah Rukh Khan-owned franchise found themselves in a shell with the ball as well. Pat Cummins was doing the best he could, but the lack of sustained effort from the other end resulted in the side conceding 38.8 runs per wicket - once again, the worst among all teams. It is where SRH, however, may soar high with Bhuvneshwar Kumar and Sandeep Sharma being as parsimonious as ever. Bhuvneshwar just returned from a fantastic series against England which will keep him in good stead on the slow and low decks of Chepauk. 

The tough Kuldeep question for KKR

If the last two seasons are anything to go by, Kuldeep Yadav has lost the edge that had once made him, briefly yet incandescently, the world’s best practitioner of spin bowling in limited-overs cricket. In the last two IPLs, he averaged 92.00 and 71.50 respectively while featuring in only 14 games combined. It was a majestic fall from grace - with now, Kuldeep not even a certainty in the starting XI.

Meanwhile, Varun Chakravarthy’s fitness issues might have cast him aside from a national debut, but the relaxed atmosphere in the franchise competition would mean he would be the lead spinner for Kolkata Knight Riders with one of Harbhajan Singh or Sunil Narine accompanying him. If the evidence of the first game is anything to go by, the wicket at the MA Chidambaram Stadium in Chennai is drastically different from the one that Chennai Super Kings used to dominate the campaign. 

Over a period of time, that evens out though, which implies off-spinners have been the most successful entity, with an economy rate below 7 and a bowling average on the south of 25. That might persuade Eoin Morgan to pack the side with Harbhajan Singh, whose record at Chepauk remains impeccable. 

Will SRH adapt horses for courses in Chennai

Had it been any other franchise, Mohammed Nabi would have already played some 70-odd IPL matches but such has been the dynamics of Sunrisers that he had to be content with carrying bottles to the ground. But now that the caravan has moved to Chennai, Nabi might finally add to his 14 IPL caps at the expense of Jason Holder. Holder picked 14 wickets from 7 games in the IPL 2020, but now that Bhuvi is back, things might change. 

However, that initiates a domino effect which will be extremely crucial for the management to be prepared for. Kane Williamson was fantastic for them at No.4 last season and in the current form, David Warner and Jonny Bairstow are undroppable. Rashid Khan is the first name on the team sheet, thus how SRH would include Nabi remains to be seen.

One possible alternative was the same accommodation that they extended for Holder last season in the UAE - drop Bairstow and ask Wriddhiman Saha to open alongside the skipper. Especially in Chennai, where the wicket might get tricky at some point, having a player of Williamson’s calibre will help the side massively in dictating the course of the game.

Probable XI : 

Sunrisers Hyderabad: David Warner (c), Wriddhiman Saha, Kane Williamson, Manish Pandey, Vijay Shankar, Kedhar Jadhav, Mohammad Nabi, Rashid Khan, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, T Natarajan, Sandeep Sharma

Kolkata Knight Riders : 

Shubman Gill, Rahul Tripathi, Nitish Rana, Eoin Morgan (c), Dinesh Karthik (wk), Andre Russell, Shakib Al Hasan, Pat Cummins, Harbhajan Singh, Prasidh Krishna, Varun Chakravarthy.