The Super Kings and Knight Riders have had contrasting fortunes in their last two games respectively.
Overview
The Kolkata Knight (KKR) Cavaliers looked a bit lackluster following their victory over Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) in their 2021 Indian Premier League (IPL) opener. In their previous match, Eoin Morgan and Co a lost to the Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) by 38 points.
In their next match, on Wednesday April 21, the Knight Riders will face the Chennai Super Kings (CSK). This is their first game at Mumbai’s Wankhede Stadium this season. On a head-to-head count, the Yellow Army leads the Knights by 15-9.
As for CSK, they had a horrible outing against the Delhi Capitals (DC) but with back-to-back wins they are placed second in the points table. In their previous meeting, CSK overtook the Rajasthan Royals (RR) by a decent margin of 45 points.
Match details
Match – Kolkata Knight Riders vs Chennai Super Kings – 15th game
Location – Wankhede Stadium, Mumbai
Time – 7:30 p.m. IST, 2:00 p.m. GMT
Where to watch live – Star Sports Network, Hotstar
Pitch report
The pitch at Wankhede Stadium was decent for the stick. While the races have tried a tiny bit in the last few innings, bowlers still have to work hard to restrain hitters.
Beating second should again be the way to go for both teams. The temperature will be around 29 degrees Celsius with humidity in the 70’s. Dew will likely play an important role.
Average score of the first rounds: 170 (5 matches in IPL 2021 at Wankhede)
Record of pursuit teams: Won – 3, Lost – 2, Tie – 0
Probable game XIs:
Calcutta knight horsemen
Nitish Rana, Shubman Gill, Rahul Tripathi, Sunil Narine, Eoin Morgan (c), Dinesh Karthik (week), Andre Russell, Pat Cummins, Prasidh Krishna, Varun Chakravarthy, Shivam Mavi
Bench: Karun Nair, Gurkeerat Mann Singh, Sunil Narine, Venkatesh Iyer, Ben Cutting, Pawan Negi, Sheldon Jackson, Tim Seifert, Kuldeep Yadav, Lockie Ferguson, Vaibhav Arora, Sandeep Warrier, Harbhajan Singh, Shakib Al Hasan
Chennai Super Kings
Ruturaj Gaikwad, Faf Du Plessis, Moeen Ali, Suresh Raina, Ambati Rayudu, MS Dhoni (C and WK), Dwayne Bravo, Ravindra Jadeja, Sam Curran, Shardul Thakur, Deepak Chahar
Bench: Robin Uthappa, Imran Tahir, KM Asif, Bhagath Verma, C Hari Nishanth, Narayan Jagadeesan, Cheteshwar Pujara, Harishankar Reddy, Sai Kishore, Mitchell Santner, Karn Sharma
Face-to-face
Overall
Played – 25 | Kolkata Knight Horsemen – 9 | Chennai Super Kings – 15 | N / R – 1
In neutral places
Played – 7 | Kolkata Knight Riders – 3 | Chennai Super Kings – 3 | N / R – 1
Probably best batsman of the game
Suresh Raina – Chennai Super Kings
Suresh Raina has some impressive numbers against the Knight Riders. In 24 games against them, the southpaw has registered 818 points at an average and strike rate of 45.44 and 136.33 respectively.
In addition, the left-hander has only scored eight half-centuries with a best score of 84. In the current IPL, the left-hander has 80 points under his belt with an average of 26.66 with the highest score of 54.
Probably the best bowler of the game
Varun Chakravarthy – Knight Riders of Kolkata
Varun Chakravarthy was excellent in the game against the Challengers by getting rid of Virat Kohli and Rajat Patidar in his first spell. The tweaker has some decent numbers against the Super Kings.
Last year he played two games against MS Dhoni and Co and won three wickets. Plus, he kept batters in check by conceding 48 points in his eight overs at a frugal economy rate of six.
Match Prediction of the Day: Kolkata Knight Riders will win the match.
