We are at the Eden Gardens in a day game which promises to be a thriller when Kolkata Knight Riders will host Lucknow Super Giants. Both the teams are coming into this contesr on d back of losses. Lets see who prevails.
Kolkata Knight Riders:
Kolkata hit the ground running with 3 great performances but their juggernaut was halted by CSK who produced their best display of the tournament to tame the knights. Shreyas Iyer and co will be looking to come back with a bang in front of their home fans. When you watch KKRs line up you can't seem to find any weakness. They have all the bases covered this season especially with Narine opening and Raghuvanshi coming in at 3, they can actually bat till no. 8. Narine Varun and Suyash form a great trio when it comes to spin bowling. They complement each other very well too.
Lucknow Super Giants:
Lucknow lost to the Capitals just couple of nights ago. They had no idea what hit them when Jake Fraser Mcgurk who was playing his first game went hammer and tongs after the bowling and treated everyone with disdain. For Lucknow, the onus is on KL Rahul yet again to provide the much needed stability at the top which will provide a platform for players like Stoinis Pooran and Badoni to launch later. Pooran has been in great striking form throughout this edition. Got a peach from Kuldeep first up in the last game. Mayank Yadav has missed the last couple of games which has been a serious dent for them. He was breathing fire in his initial couple of games. Took everyone by surprise. Lucknow will be hoping to get him fit soon as we are approaching towards the business end of the tournament.
Players to watch out for
Shreyas Iyer
We all know what Shreyas Iyer is capable of but he has not been able to meet the expectations of the fans. This might be just that day when Shreyas cuts loose and goes berserk. We all know how good he is against spin. Tackling Bishnoi and Krunal will be a task but Shreyas can handle it at Eden. Watching Shreyas on song is a treat to the eyes.
KL Rahul
KL Rahul will be looking to score runs as all his competitors for that WK spot in the WC. Samson, Kishan, Karthik, Pant all have been scoring runs. KL Rahul has been pegged back a bit in the pecking order. He has lots of ground to make in order to be in contention for the World Cup. Things wont be easy for him as he is up against Narine and Varun. Rahul's record against Narine is decent but he struggles against Varun. His strike rate against Varun is not even run a ball.
Vs Narine 105 runs, 2 dismissal, 150 sr
Vs Chakravarty 43 runs 1 dismissal, 97 SR
Likely Playing 11:
Kolkata Knight Riders
Sunil Narine
Phil Salt
Angkrish Raghuvanshi
Shreyas Iyer
Venkatesh Iyer
Ramandeep Singh
Rinku Singh
Andre Russell
Mitchell Starc
Vaibhav Arora
Varun Chakravarthy
Sub: Suyash Sharma
Lucknow Super Giants
KL Rahul
Quinton De Kock
Devdutt Paddikal
Marcus Stoinis
Nicholas Pooran
Ayush Badoni
Krunal Pandya
Arshad Khan
Ravi Bishnoi
Naveel Ul Haq
Yash Thakur
Impact sub: M Siddharth
