Kolkata Knight Riders will take on the Sunrisers Hyderabad in match 61 of IPL 2022 at the MCA stadium in Pune. The Knight Riders are currently placed eighth in the points table and even if they win both of their remaining league games, they will still have to depend upon the result of other teams to make the playoffs.
The Sunrisers, on the other hand, have to win all their three league games to qualify for the playoffs. If they lose one, they will have to depend on the result of other teams but if they win all three, they will qualify for the next round irrespective of the outcome of other teams' games.
The Shreyas Iyer led side will be without Pat Cummins for the remainder of the season. The bowling all-rounder has flown back home after suffering a minor injury which has also ruled him out of the T20I series against Sri Lanka. Hyderabad, meanwhile, are expecting Washington Sundar and T Natarajan to be fit for this game but the franchise has not confirmed their availability yet.
In the past, KKR and SRH have played a total of 22 games between them. Of these, Kolkata have won 14 while Hyderabad have won 8.
The match will be played at the MCA stadium which has been a great venue for batting this season. From KKR, expect the likes of Andre Russell and Shreyas Iyer to make the most of the pitch conditions. From SRH, Aiden Markram, Nicholas Pooran and Umran Malik will be the players to watch out for.
Predicted XI
Kolkata Knight Riders – Ajinkya Rahane, Venkatesh Iyer, Shreyas Iyer (c), Nitish Rana, Rinku Singh, Sam Billings (wk), Andre Russell, Umesh Yadav/Shivam Mavi, Sunil Narine, Tim Southee, Varun Chakravarthy
Sunrisers Hyderabad – Kane Williamson (c), Abhishek Sharma, Rahul Tripathi, Aiden Markram, Nicholas Pooran (wk), Shashank Singh, Washington Sundar/J Suchith, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Marco Jansen/ Romario Shepherd, Umran Malik, T Natarajan/Kartik Tyagi
Image credit: IPL
