Kolkata Knight Riders are still coming to terms with the sudden change of guard in captaincy in the middle of the IPL 2020 season. Under Eoin Morgan, the two-time champions didn’t have an auspicious start as Mumbai Indians yet again got the better of the purple and gold brigade.
KKR’s momentum went south after two consecutive drubbings. The top order failed to fire against Mumbai and at one stage they were restricted to 42/4 before Pat Cummins hit a fifty to bail the team out of trouble. Mumbai chased the modest target of 149 with more than three overs to spare, putting a major dent at KKR’s net run-rate.
Their opponent for the next encounter - Sunrisers Hyderabad find themselves in a similar situation. While KKR has bagged eight points in as many games, Hyderabad has managed to pick six points and they would be eager to pocket a couple of points.
Hyderabad will head into the contest on the back of two defeats. They miss pacer Bhuvneshwar Kumar dearly but Sandeep Sharma and T Natarajan have been promising. The trump card of the pack - Rashid Khan has been phenomenal on most occasions, barring one odd off-days which have come against the Royals and CSK where he was taken to the cleaners. In the batting front, David Warner and Jonny Bairstow have yet again found themselves among runs while Manish Pandey and Kane Williamson make the top-order look solid on paper, but they have failed to click together as a unit.
The Knight Riders will have to fix their batting woes. While Dinesh Karthik has been going up and down in the batting order, Andre Russel and Eoin Morgan are yet to make notable contributions. Opener Shubman Gill has been under the scanner for his approach as KKR have failed to make use of the powerplay overs. One good show will give them an ample amount of confidence.
The young pace battery has done fairly well while Varun Chakravarthy has found himself among wickets. There is uncertainty over Sunil Narine’s availability as he is working overtime on getting his bowling action right. All in all, it should be a cracker of a contest as both the teams look to get closer to the playoff berth.
Sunrisers Hyderabad vs Kolkata Knight Riders: Match Details
Match Number - 35
Date: 18th October 2020, at 3:30 PM IST
Venue: Sheikh Zayed Stadium, Abu Dhabi
Broadcast - Star Sports and Hotstar
Pitch and Weather Report
The wicket at the Sheikh Zayed Stadium has helped pacers extract movement while spinners have come handy. It gives an impression of a two-paced track where it gets difficult to score runs as the game progresses due to the slow nature of the pitch.
The sun is likely to shine bright as sides have preferred cooling their heels in the dressing room and go out to bat at the stroke of sun-set.
Both sides will look to win the toss and bat first. A total of anything around 165 should be defendable on the slowish track
Expected XI:
Sunrisers Hyderabad -
David Warner (C), Jonny Bairstow (WK), Manish Pandey, Kane Williamson, Priyam Garg, Abhishek Sharma/Vijay Shankar, Shahbaz Nadeem, Rashid Khan, T Natarajan, Sandeep Sharma and Khaleel Ahmed
Kolkata Knight Riders -
Rahul Tripathi, Shubman Gill, Nitish Rana, Dinesh Karthik (WK), Eoin Morgan (C), Andre Russell, Chris Green/Kuldeep Yadav, Shivam Mavi/Lockie Ferguson, Pat Cummins, Prasidh Krishna and Varun Chakravarthy.
Sunrisers Hyderabad vs Kolkata Knight Riders: Dream 11 team and suggestions
Jonny Bairstow, Dinesh Karthik, David Warner, Shubman Gill, Nitish Rana, Priyam Garg, Andre Russell, Rashid Khan, Pat Cummins, Khaleel Ahmed and Varun Chakravarthy
Captain: Jonny Bairstow
Vice Captain: Pat Cummins
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