Kings XI Punjab are song in the ongoing VIVO 10 IPL and they must be feeling better this year with the kind of start they are off to. Today they will take on Kolkatta Knight riders in Kolkatta and their record against them has not been good at all. But the kind of form they have shown, they can spring a surprise by beating KKR and if they do so they will be the first team to make a hat-trick of wins this year.
In both the matches of the last season whether they played at home or away Kings were outplayed by KKR and most of their batsmen even did not cross single digit figure.Overall KKR enjoy 3-6 lead and the entire IPL matches they have played so far and their record is 6-2 at the Eden Gardens.
The sad news for Kightriders is they will be missing Chris Lynn for a “substantial” time and that means Gautam Gambhir and Robin Uthappa one of the successful opening pairs will be reunited . Their opening partnership has tallied more than 400 runs for three seasons straight. But the good news is fast bowler Umesh Yadav has recovered from his hip and lower back injuries and might play today. Bangladesh allrounder Shakib Al Hasan is also available for KKR today. Their main worry is Yusuf Pathan, who put up a bad show in the last two matches.
On the other hand, Glen Maxwell has been in superb form for the Kings XI and if gets good support from Miller and some of the Indians at the top order it will be fantastic for them.
In yesterday’s match Sunrisers Hyderabad tasted their first defeat of this season. They lost to Mumbai Indians at the Wankhede stadium very badly. They could not capitalise on the wonderful start they were off to as they could make only 158 in the end which was not a fighting total on a flat wicket.
Teams: Kolkata Knight Riders 1 Gautam Gambhir (capt), 2 Robin Uthappa (wk), 3 Manish Pandey, 4 Shakib Al Hasan, 5 Yusuf Pathan, 6 Suryakumar Yadav, 7 Chris Woakes, 8 Sunil Narine, 9 Kuldeep Yadav, 10 Umesh Yadav/Piyush Chawla, 11 Trent Boult.
Kings XI Punjab 1 Hashim Amla, 2 Manan Vohra, 3 Wriddhiman Saha (wk), 4 Glenn Maxwell (capt), 5 David Miller, 6 Marcus Stoinis, 7 Axar Patel, 8 Mohit Sharma, 9 Sandeep Sharma, 10 Varun Aaron, 11 T Natarajan.
Mahavaadi Sudeer– DD Commentator
