New Delhi. The teams of Kolkata Knight Riders, captained by Shreyas Iyer, and Sunrisers Hyderabad, led by Pat Cummins, will clash at the Eden Gardens Stadium on Saturday. In this match, the eyes of the world will be on the two most expensive players in IPL history. Apart from these, focus will also be on the performance of KKR captain Shreyas, who is returning after a long time due to injury. Shreyas, who was out of the entire season last year due to a back injury, will take charge of KKR. He recently scored 95 runs for Mumbai in Ranji Trophy but considering his fitness, it is not certain whether he will be able to play all the matches or not.
KKR’s most successful captain Gautam Gambhir has now returned in the second innings as a mentor. His partnership with head coach Chandrakant Pandit, a shrewd strategist on the domestic circuit, will be interesting. Under Gambhir’s captaincy, KKR won two IPL titles from 2011 to 2017, played five playoffs and once finished runner-up in the now defunct Champions League. KKR has bought Starc for Rs 24 crore 75 lakh and there will be a lot of pressure on this left arm fast bowler to perform well. His spells can prove to be decisive in powerplay and death overs. KKR has two experienced fast bowlers like Starc and Andre Russell and there is no alternative like them to replace them, hence care will have to be taken in workload management.
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Apart from Iyer, KKR has Rinku Singh, Russell, Rahmanullah Gurbaz, Phil Salt and Venkatesh Iyer in batting. Sunil Narayan, Varun Chakraborty and Suyyash Sharma will be responsible for spin bowling. The command of Sunrisers will be in the hands of Australian team captain Cummins, who has been bought for Rs 20 crore 50 lakh. He is the second most expensive player in the IPL and the responsibility of changing the fortunes of Sunrisers, who have finished last in the last three seasons, will be on him.
Hyderabad has excellent pacers in the form of Cummins and Bhuvi.
Sunrisers have batsmen like Travis Head and Heinrich Klaasen, while the bowling will have Cummins and India’s death overs specialist Bhuvneshwar Kumar. Wanindu Hasaranga and Washington Sundar will handle the spin. Pat Cummins recently led Australia to the ODI World Cup title. The Kangaroo team is performing well under his captaincy. It will be interesting to see whether he is able to change the fortunes of Sunrisers or not.
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Tags: IPL, KKR vs SRH, Mitchell Starc, pat cummins
FIRST PUBLISHED: March 22, 2024, 17:32 IST