KKR vs SRH: Hyderabad-Kolkata clash, who will make it to the final? What will be the possible XI?

Ahmedabad. When Kolkata Knight Riders, who are in excellent form, will face ‘run machine’ Sunrisers Hyderabad in the first qualifier of the Indian Premier League on Tuesday, May 21, the spectators will be guaranteed a treat of exciting cricket. KKR was the first team to reach the IPL playoffs this year while Sunrisers secured the second position by defeating Punjab Kings by four wickets in the last league match.

These teams, which were ranked in the top two positions in 70 matches of the league stage, have got a good break due to rain in the last ten days. However, the challenge of not being able to spend much time on the field before the playoffs is also difficult. KKR and Sunrisers, who reached here after traveling hundreds of kilometres, will not get much time to adapt to the conditions. Both of them played their last league match on Sunday only. Although Sunrisers defeated Punjab by playing the entire match, the match between KKR and Rajasthan Royals could not be played due to rain. KKR played its last full match on 11 May. Before the rain disruption, KKR had won four consecutive matches, the last two matches were washed out due to rain.

Top-ranked KKR will miss wicketkeeper-batsman Phil Salt (435 runs) who has returned home to join the England team before the T20 World Cup. Salt and Sunil Narayan (461) have given a great start to KKR. Captain Shreyas Iyer (287 runs) could not impress in the middle order but his absence was not missed by the team. Due to the match against Royals being washed out due to rain, Rahmanullah Gurbaz, who came in the team in place of Salt, could not get practice, which will worry the KKR camp.

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It is also very important for KKR for Nitish Rana and Andre Russell to be in form. On paper, KKR and Sunrisers seem to be equal teams, which has made this match more exciting. Both Travis Head and Abhishek Sharma have set a string of records by scoring runs at a strike rate of more than 200. Australia’s Head has created a new definition of aggressive batting and so far has scored 533 runs including one century and four half-centuries. Along with him, Abhishek (467 runs) has also played freely and hit 41 sixes in the IPL so far.

Sunrisers have a reliable batsman like Rahul Tripathi at number three. Heinrich Klaasen has returned to form and scored 42 runs against Punjab. Last year in the World Cup final it was seen in Ahmedabad that the team batting later got more success. After four out of six, the team chasing the target has been successful. KKR has excellent spinners along with fast bowlers led by Mitchell Starc, while Sunrisers’ bowling is led by captain Pat Cummins. In their last match this season, KKR had defeated Sunrisers by four runs.

Squads of both the teams:

Probable XI of Sunrisers Hyderabad: Abhishek Sharma, Travis Head, Nitish Reddy, Heinrich Klaasen (wk), Abdul Samad, Shahbaz Ahmed, Sanvir Singh, Pat Cummins (c), Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Jaydev Unadkat, Vijaykant Vyaskant.

Kolkata Knight Riders’ probable XI: Rahmanullah Gurbaz (wicketkeeper), Sunil Narine, Nitish Rana, Shreyas Iyer (captain), Venkatesh Iyer, Andre Russell, Rinku Singh, Ramandeep Singh, Mitchell Starc, Varun Chakraborty, Harshit Rana.

tag: ipl 2024, Kolkata Knight Riders, Sunrisers Hyderabad