After impacting each other’s journey in the ongoing season of the Indian Premier League with every wins and losses, two teams vying for one spot in the top four - the Kings XI Punjab and the Kolkata Knight Riders will lock horns to push the other away from the race directly in a mouth-watering contest. Both sides have a spring in their step after energetic and soul-searching wins in their last games. The KKR trounced the Delhi Capitals in their last game on the back of performances reminiscent of the franchise’s past while the KL Rahul-led KXIP’s resurgence has taken the IPL by storm.
The Kings XI Punjab got their mojo back in their win against the Mumbai Indians in the match that went down to two super overs and the side has never looked back since defeating the Delhi Capitals handsomely in the next match and followed it up with a spectacular win against the Sunrisers when all looked doomed and gloomy for the Mohali-based side. The fact that the team has managed to win on the back of players other than mainstays in captain KL Rahul and Mayank Agarwal would give a leap of confidence to the side. Nicholas Pooran has shown the form he was trusted to display in the tournament by the side and now the Kings XI are riding high on belief after winning games from behind in the last few games.
On the other hand, the Kolkata Knight Riders proved that the side houses too much class to put on dismal batting performances for a long period of time and the Delhi Capitals turned out to be on the wrong side of their firepower. The last win against the Capitals was achieved courtesy two seasoned pros in Sunil Narine, Nitish Rana and a rising star Varun Chakravarthy. The side turned back the clock and showed all the quality of it used to show in its prime days in the history of the league.
KXIP have won five matches while the KKR have 12 points from six wins after playing an equal number of matches at 11. The encounter between the side could well be one knockout clash where the ascendancy of one over another will push the side on the wrong side of the result on the brink of the playoff chances in the season.
Eoin Morgan would be hoping for some consistency from his side and will expect his men to carry on with the self-belief and momentum they would have gained after such a big win over the Capitals while KL Rahul would keep reminding his men that the journey is not finished yet and one bad game would undo all the hard work and hard-earned success of the last four games.
The game will also be a matchup between the bowling lineup of the KKR which has the raw pace of Lockie Ferguson and Pat Cummins along with the guile and surprises of Varun Chakravarthy and the star-studded lineup of the Kings XI filled with explosive batsmen such as KL Rahul, Mayank Agarwal, Chris Gayle and Nicholas Pooran. The KKR bowling lineup is in top-notch form and so are the KXIP batsmen and it would make up for a riveting contest to start afresh week in the IPL 2020.
Match Number - 46
Date: 25th October 2020, at 7:30 PM IST
Venue: Sharjah
An old pitch that was used in the game between the Mumbai Indians and the Chennai Super Kings will be used again for this match and it might bring spinners into the game. The pair of Trent Boult and Jasprit Bumrah found help from the pitch and Boult also got a considerable amount of movement in the air to torment the CSK’s top order and the bowling attack on either side will look to extract same purchase as Boult and Bumrah got in the last game on this pitch.
The par score at the Sharjah cricket ground has decreased considerably after the first few games when batsmen were making merry off the bowlers due to extremely short boundaries and the sides will look to reboot their batting tactics keeping in mind the size of the boundary in Sharjah.
The weather in Sharjah is likely to be pleasant for the players with the temperature dipping below the 30 degree-mark and expected level of humidity around 50 per cent.
Eoin Morgan had credited Brendon McCullum for bringing back Sunil Narine into the playing XI and the team did not give any reasons whatsoever to make Morgan and McCullum ponder over the makeup of the playing XI. However, it is more than likely that the KKR will maintain a fluid batting order where batsmen will be picked to bat at different positions based on situations in a particular game.
Shubman Gill, Nitish Rana, Rahul Tripathi, Eoin Morgan (c), Dinesh Karthik (wk), Sunil Narine, Pat Cummins, Lockie Ferguson, Kamlesh Nagarkoti, Prasidh Krishna, Varun Chakravarthy
Mayank Agarwal missed the last game due to an injury he had picked up in the game against the Delhi Capitals but his injury did not look serious at that time. Although there is a lack of clarity on the nature of his injury, he is likely to walk back into the XI against the KKR.
The rest of the team should be as it was in the last game except for any injury concerns in the 11th hour.
KL Rahul (c & wk), Mayank Agarwal, Chris Gayle, Nicholas Pooran, Glenn Maxwell, Deepak Hooda, Murugan Ashwin, Chris Jordan, Mohammed Shami, Ravi Bishnoi, Arshdeep Singh
Dinesh Karthik, Nicholas Pooran, KL Rahul, Rahul Tripathi, Nitish Rana, Eoin Morgan, Mayank Agarwal, Sunil Narine, Lockie Ferguson, Chris Jordan, Mohammed Shami
Captain: KL Rahul
Vice-captain: Nicholas Pooran
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