Kolkata Knight Riders troubled start to the IPL 2023 campaign continues with their batting mainstay and first-choice captain Shreyas Iyer ruled out of the entire season. This after allrounder Shakib Al Hasan pulled out citing personal reasons and international duties.
In their season opener, KKR suffered a seven-run defeat at the hands of Punjab Kings in Mohali. Their next challenge is against Royal Challengers Bangalore, a team that swept aside five-time winners Mumbai Indians to start their campaign.
With an inexperienced Nitish Rana leading the franchise, their could be a leadership crisis with celebrated coach Chandrakant Pandit hoping to sprinkle his magic on the fortunes of the franchise.
What will give KKR, a two-time IPL champions, comfort is the fact that they will be playing at Eden Gardens, their first home game of the ongoing tournament.
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What: Kolkata Knight Riders vs Royal Challengers Bangalore
When: April 6 (Thursday)
Where: Eden Gardens, Kolkata
Start Time: 7:30 PM IST
KKR Team News
‘Accidental’ skipper Rana, who has experience of leading Delhi in white-ball cricket, has a big task ahead of him as the team desperately seeks some solace in its den.
The buzz is that KKR’s owner Shah Rukh Khan will be in the house when they return here after 1,438 days. They last played at Eden Gardens on April 28, 2019 — a 34-run win over Mumbai Indians before COVID-19 hit the world.
The excitement will be at an all-time high for both teams, with crowd-puller Virat Kohli in the visitors’ dug out.
KKR looked a shadow of their past in their season-opener, which was interrupted by a floodlight glitch before the skies opened up.
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Iyer’s absence has made the batting feeble. A quick-fire fifty-run partnership between Andre Russell and Venkatesh Iyer, who was promoted to No. 4, was the highlight of their batting against Punjab.
KKR also can take positives from a cracking start by Afghan wicketkeeper-batter Rahmanullah Gurbaz, who smashed a flurry of boundaries and a 101-metre six before perishing for 22.
KKR had blamed the power failure in the innings break for their drop in momentum, but the truth is they will have to raise the bar.
On the bowling front, the likes of Tim Southee and Sunil Narine leaked runs, something they will have to address.
Narine looked to have lost his mystery ball as the Punjab batters took him to the cleaners.
KKR’s attack will be put to test against the likes of Faf du Plessis and Virat Kohli, who looked in imperious touch in an unbeaten 82 in their eight-wicket win over Mumbai Indians.
RCB Team News
RCB’s pace trio of Mohammed Siraj, Harshal Patel and Akash Deep will also look to make it count on a seaming-friendly Eden.
But they are likely to miss English pacer Reece Topley, who suffered a shoulder dislocation. David Willey is expected to replace him.
Kolkata Knight Riders: Nitish Rana (c), Rahmanullah Gurbaz, Venkatesh Iyer, Andre Russell, Sunil Narine, Shardul Thakur, Lockie Ferguson, Umesh Yadav, Tim Southee, Harshit Rana, Varun Chakravarthy, Anukul Roy, Rinku Singh, N. Jagadeesan, Vaibhav Arora, Suyash Sharma, David Wiese, Kulwant Khejroliya, Litton Das and Mandeep Singh
Royal Challengers Bangalore: Faf du Plessis (c), Virat Kohli, Suyash Prabhudessai, Dinesh Karthik, Anuj Rawat, Finn Allen, Glenn Maxwell, Wanindu Hasaranga, Shahbaz Ahmed, Harshal Patel, David Willey, Karn Sharma, Mahipal Lomror, Mohammed Siraj, Josh Hazlewood, Siddarth Kaul, Akash Deep, Reece Topley, Himanshu Sharma and Michael Bracewell
With PTI Inputs
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