OVERVIEW: After CSK's massive win over DC last night, this game becomes a bottom of the table clash. Both these teams have won 7 titles so far while combining, which is 1 more than the combined number of games that they’ve won in this season (MI-2 & KKR-4).
MUMBAI: Even after losing their 8th game on the trot, they still had a mathematical chance but now they are well and truly out of the tournament. So, they’ll look to spoil the party of the other teams and get out of the 10th position where they’ve never finished before. A thrilling last over win against the table toppers Gujarat in their last game will give them a lot of confidence. Daniel Sams will be pumped up as he redeemed himself by saving 9 in the last over, considering he conceded 35 in one over against the same opposition exactly a month ago. Both Rohit and Pollard have been really disappointing and especially Pollard is having his worst season ever as his strike is not even more than 110. He could not finish games as he was doing in the previous seasons, and Mumbai Indians might be missing the services of Pandya brothers badly. The resurgence of Tim David as a finisher, makes us to raise the question why they didn’t give him an extended run early in the tournament.
KOLKATA: The way they started the season by winning 3 out of 4, they looked like one of the favourites but in their next 7, they’ve just managed to win one. Especially by the way they lost their previous game again Lucknow Super Giants, they will be definitely depleted. Lucknow Super Giants literally bounced out doubt KKR out of the contest. In their previous meeting against the Mumbai Indians which they won, Pat Cummins starred with a bat and Venkatesh Iyer also scored of 50 while opening with Ajinkya Rahane. But now, all these three find themselves out of the playing 11 because of poor form. The Knight Riders have used 20 different players out of their squad so far, in which only Shreyas Iyer, Nitish Rana, Andre Russell and Sunil Narine have been constant throughout the season. They look to win the game with a decent margin and improve their NRR, considering a mathematical way still possible.
MUMBAI INDIANS: R Sharma (c), I Kishan (wk), T Varma, SK Yadav, T David, K Pollard, D Sams, H Shokeen, M Ashwin, R Meredith, J Bumrah.
The unavailability of Mills might force Mumbai to stick with Meredith.
KOLKATA KNIGHT RIDERS: A Finch, B Indrajith (wk), S Iyer (c), N Rana, R Singh, A Russell, S Narine, A Roy, S Mavi, T Southee, H Rana.
None of the 5 different opening combinations of KKR have been successful and considering their poor RR in the powerplay, they could promote Narine to open with Indrajith as he (Indrajith) takes his time to settle. KKR have to find a way to get Cummins back as he’s versatile and has a good record against MI. For that they might drop Finch because Southee has made himself undroppable by picking up 11 wickets in 6 games.
PITCH REPORT:
Except one or two odd games, DY PATIL has given us a run fest throughout this tournament. The average total batting first here is 203 which is really high given a long run. So, batting first and posting a mammoth total will be the ideal way to go here. And keeping the poor death bowling of both the teams in mind (Russell exception), we might be in for a high scoring not a thriller but a closely contested game.
STATS/MILESOTNES:
- Kolkata have defeated Mumbai only once in Mumbai that was exactly 10 years ago in 2012.
- Rohit Sharma just needs 1 more run to become the leading run scorer against Kolkata in IPL.
- Rohit Sharma needs 12 more runs to become the leading run scorer against a single opposition in IPL. Shikhar Dhawan currently leads with 1029 runs against CSK.
- Andre Russell needs 28 more runs to reach 2000 IPL runs.
- KKR have used 20 different players from their squad which is the most by any team in this tournament next to Mumbai Indians.
DREAM 11 FANTASY TEAM:
