Are SRH well equiped to tackle Gambhir's spin strategy?

There’s not much history between Kolkata Knight Riders and Sunrisers Hyderabad in the Indian Premier League, but if you glance through their squads, you will be stunned by the plethora of match-winners both franchises possess this season. Hence, when they come face to face against each other on March 23 (Saturday) to commence their IPL 2024 campaign, expect proper entertainment. 

Gautam Gambhir is back in the KKR camp and will be ready to unleash his spin trio on SRH batters. Skipper Shreyas Iyer has been in the news for the wrong reasons and would be eager to prove a point. Meanwhile, the presence of Mitchell Starc will also serve as a huge boost to Kolkata. Then there is SRH, being led by Pat Cummins who has won everything in the last two years. Their biggest headache will be picking four overseas players from eight world-class options. 

PBKS vs DC Head-to-Head 

Overall - Games 25 | KKR 16 | SRH 9

H2H at Eden Gardens - Games 9 | KKR 6 | SRH 3

Venue Details

The batters had a good time at Eden Gardens in the IPL 2023, with them scoring runs at an average of 29.7 and a rate of 9.5. The average first innings total was 193. The captains chose to bowl first in six out of seven matches. The teams batting first won four games, while the chasing side won three.

The spinners had much better numbers - average 26.7, strike rate 19 and economy 8.4 - compared to fast bowlers (33.9, 19.8 and 10.3) respectively. Now that Gambhir is back, and with KKR possessing three quality spinners, don’t be surprised if there’s more assistance for the tweakers.  

Weather Forecast

The rain is going to be around the corner but we should get enough time for the match to complete. Meanwhile, the temperature will be around 27-28 degrees during the clash, with the humidity level going up to 75 %.

Things to watch out for

Cummins is fixed, but what about the rest?

Cummins is set to captain for the first time in the IPL, but who are going to be the other three overseas players for SRH? 

Travis Head, Aiden Markram, Heinrich Klaasen, Glenn Phillips, Wanindu Hasaranga, Marco Jansen and Fazalhaq Farooqi - these are players who would be in the starting XI of every franchise but that won’t be the case with Hyderabad.

Also read - Sunrisers Hyderabad bank on Cummins’ Midas touch to turn fortunes around

Now, we don’t need to explain why Klaasen is a certain starter and the South African will also keep wickets. The Sunrisers will then have to pick two between Head, Markram and Hasaranga. One of SRH’s biggest problems last season was their powerplay batting, as they had the joint lowest scoring rate (7.9). None of the batters had a strike rate of more than 140 in the first six overs (at least 50 deliveries).

With the addition of Head, they can address this issue as he adds firepower at the top of the order. He has a strike rate of more than 160 in the powerplay in T20Is. What’s more, he has been in great form in T20Is in recent years as he has scored at a strike rate of 168 since 2022. He has scored 83% of his runs in the powerplay at a strike rate of 173 and hit a boundary every three balls on average.

Then there is Markram, who didn’t have a great IPL 2023, but is an excellent batter of spin, something you would need against the likes of Sunil Narine, Varun Chakravarthy and Suyash Sharma. However, Hasaranga is likely to start because of the variety he brings but SRH will then need Mayank Agarwal, Abhishek Sharma and Rahul Tripathi to step up, which didn’t happen last year.

Salt to solve KKR’s opening woes?

The Knight Riders used eight opening combinations in the IPL 2023, the most by any team. Unsurprisingly, KKR openers had the second-worst average (22.6) in the tournament. Venkatesh Iyer was all over the place last season but is likely to return to the top this year. And KKR could also benefit from having Phil Salt as his partner. 

Also read - KKR bank on spin to regain their touch under Gambhir

As an opener in T20Is, the wicketkeeper-batter has slammed 561 runs in 15 innings at an average of 43.2 and a strike rate of 166. He only featured in two games in the International League T20 (ILT20), where he hit 56 runs at an insane strike rate of 243.5. His presence would allow both Iyers some time to settle in. If not Salt, Kolkata could also go with Rahmanullah Gurbaz who hasn’t been in great T20 form lately.

Probable XIs

KKR - Phil Salt* (wk), Venkatesh Iyer (IP), Shreyas Iyer (capt), Nitish Rana, Rinku Singh, Andre Russell*, Anukul Roy/Ramandeep Singh, Sunil Narine*, Mitchell Starc*, Varun Chakravarthy, Harshit Rana, Suyash Sharma (IP)

SRH - Mayank Agarwal (IP), Travis Head*, Abhishek Sharma, Rahul Tripathi, Heinrich Klaasen* (wk), Abdul Samad, Shahbaz Ahmed/Washington Sundar, Wanindu Hasaranga*, Pat Cummins* (c), Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Umran Malik, T Natarajan (IP) 

Squads

KKR - Shreyas Iyer (c - subject to fitness) , Andre Russell*, Nitish Rana, Rinku Singh, Venkatesh Iyer, Rahmanullah Gurbaz (wk)*, Sherfane Rutherford*, Phil Salt (wk)*, KS Bharat (wk), Manish Pandey, Angkrish Raghuvanshi, Anukul Roy, Ramandeep Singh, Sunil Narine*, Suyash Sharma, Mujeeb Ur Rahman*, Dushmantha Chameera*, Sakib Hussain, Harshit Rana, Vaibhav Arora, Varun Chakravarthy, Mitchell Starc*, Chetan Sakariya

SRH - Pat Cummins (c)*, Travis Head*, Aiden Markram*, Mayank Agarwal, Heinrich Klaasen*, Anmolpreet Singh, Abdul Samad, Rahul Tripathi, Upendra Yadav, Abhishek Sharma, Glenn Phillips*, Wanindu Hasaranga*, Marco Jansen*, Shahbaz Ahmed, Washington Sundar, Sanvir Singh, Nitish Kumar Reddy, Akash Singh, Fazalhaq Farooqi*, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Mayank Markande, T Natarajan, Jhathavedh Subramanyan, Umran Malik, Jaydev Unadkat

*overseas player

Telecast and Streaming Details

The match will be live on Star Sports Network and live-streamed on Jio Cinema. The game will start at 7:30 PM, with the toss happening at 7 PM.

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