FANTASY
Follow UsKolkata Knight Riders and Mumbai Indians have contrasting starts to their fortunes in the ongoing season of the Indian Premier League but one knows how effective the five-time champions can be after a slow start. Further, Mumbai have a win rate of 75.4% against KKR makes for another bottom line to what has always been one of the worst one-sided rivalries in the franchise sport. Could the Shreyas Iyer-led side break the drought and put one back on Mumbai to restore some parity to the contest?
Availability of players
Pat Cummins is available for selection and he is most likely to take the spot of Tim Southee for the Mumbai contest. For Mumbai, Anmolpreet Singh will make way for Suryakumar Yadav who is fit and available for selection.
Ground Details
So far, two matches have been played at the Maharashtra Cricket Association Stadium, Pune this season and in both games, teams batting first have won the encounter. While Rajasthan Royals won by 61 runs against Sunrisers Hyderabad, Gujarat Titans won by 14 runs against Delhi Capitals.
In T20s since 2019, the average first innings score is a huge 194 while the average score batting second is a paltry 143. It is one of the few venues in India, where teams need to move beyond the popular perception and bat first in order to maximize the advantage.
Like most venues in T20s, pacers have the maximum advantage here, having picked 72.5 % of wickets while spinners have accounted for only 27.5 % of wickets. Even as far as the economy rate is concerned, spinners have conceded almost 0.6 runs more per over than the pacers. Hence, it is a no-brainer which category the teams would go big on.
Team Suggestion
While you could go for the above team, you also have the option of choosing your team from Cricket.com’s Fantasy Research Centre. You can use this tool to build your team with the help of algorithms. Then, based on your preferences, the platform will guide you through creating the ideal fantasy XI.
Captain selection
With the kind of impact Sunil Narine continues to have in franchise cricket, it would be baffling not to pick him as the option. The West Indian spinner has dismissed Rohit 7 times in IPL, which is the joint-most for a bowler against any batter in the league, but more importantly, he has an average of 18 against Mumbai Indians. One of the few KKR bowlers, who constantly enjoys success against Mumbai, we can also expect Narine to be impactful with the bat.
Our Criclytics player projector predicts Narine to pick up 0-1 wickets in this match and score 19-29 runs as well
X-Factors
Umesh is one of the best new-ball bowlers in IPL. In fact, only three bowlers in IPL have taken more wickets in the powerplay than Umesh Yadav. In all the three matches of KKR in the ongoing IPL, Umesh has taken a wicket in the very first over of the innings. So far in the powerplay, he has taken 5 wickets and can be mighty effective against Mumbai.
Our Criclytics player projector predicts Umesh to pick up 2-3 wickets
Andre Russell endured a couple of dull seasons with the bat but returned to his destructive best against PBKS in the last game scoring 70* off just 31 balls. Russell has been at his destructive best whenever IPL has taken place in India for a full season. Russell has hit 7 sixes so far against spin, the most by a batter in IPL 2022. With MI boasting a weak spin unit, Russell could target MI’s spinners and that gives us the flexibility to go big on the Caribbean superstar.
Our Criclytics player projector predicts Russell to pick up 3-4 wickets and score 16-24 runs
Here are the top-10 picks as per Criclytics projected points
Probable XIs:
Kolkata Knight Riders: Ajinkya Rahane, Venkatesh Iyer, Shreyas Iyer (c), Nitish Rana, Sam Billings (wk), Andre Russell, Sunil Narine, Pat Cummins, Shivam Mavi, Umesh Yadav, Varun Chakravarthy
Mumbai Indians: Rohit Sharma (c), Ishan Kishan (wk), Suryakumar Yadav, Tilak Varma, Kieron Pollard, Tim David, Daniel Sams, Murugan Ashwin, Jasprit Bumrah, Tymal Mills, Basil Thampi
