Kolkata Knight Riders Mitchell Starc will be desperate to justify his $3 million price tag as the team hosts Punjab Kings in Kolkata on April 26.
| Photo Credit: PTI
Kolkata Knight Riders will hope for another positive result at home to strengthen its position in the league table when it meets Punjab Kings at the Eden Gardens in Hyderabad on April 25.
Currently second with 10 points, KKR has a fairly good success rate, having won five of its seven matches. This is largely because of the efficiency of its batting, which has been amassing scores of above 200 regularly.
KKR will be playing its fourth consecutive game at home, where it has won two and lost one in the three previous appearances.
The last match saw 443 runs being scored as the host edged out Royal Challengers Bengaluru by the narrowest of margins — one run.
The KKR top-order has been in good form with the likes of Sunil Narine (286), Phil Salt (249), skipper Shreyas Iyer (190) and Andre Russell (155) contributing. Despite a huge investment, the bowlers have not been able to reach the level expected of them even with the presence of Mitchell Starc, who was bought for a record amount of ₹24.75 crore.
For the ninth-placed Kings, the journey so far has been far from satisfactory. The team lost its last four matches in a total of six defeats in eight games. It will hope to turn things around by outshining the home side.
Teams (from):
Kolkata Knight Riders: Shreyas Iyer (c), KS Bharat, Rahmanullah Gurbaz, Rinku Singh, Angkrish Raghuvanshi, Sherfane Rutherford, Manish Pandey, Andre Russell, Nitish Rana, Venkatesh Iyer, Anukul Roy, Ramandeep Singh, Varun Chakravarthy, Sunil Narine, Vaibhav Arora, Chetan Sakariya, Harshit Rana, Suyash Sharma, Mitchell Starc, Dushmantha Chameera, Sakib Hussain and Mujeeb Ur Rahman
Punjab Kings: Shikhar Dhawan (c), Matthew Short, Prabhsimran Singh, Jitesh Sharma, Sikandar Raza, Rishi Dhawan, Liam Livingstone, Atharva Taide, Arshdeep Singh, Nathan Ellis, Sam Curran, Kagiso Rabada, Harpreet Brar, Rahul Chahar, Harpreet Bhatia, Vidwath Kaverappa, Shivam Singh, Harshal Patel, Chris Woakes, Ashutosh Sharma, Vishwanath Pratap Singh, Shashank Singh, Tanay Thyagarajan, Prince Choudhary, Rilee Rossouw.
Match starts at 7.30 PM.
