Match detailsEden Gardens, Kolkata, 7.30pm IST (2pm GMT)
Kuldeep has bowled three balls to Narine in the IPL, and dismissed him twice, for an average of 2.00. He has an excellent record against his former franchise in general having picked 10 wickets in three games, striking every six balls. Khaleel, meanwhile, has sent back Narine twice in four innings. Shreyas Iyer has fallen to him twice in 20 balls, averaging 12.5, while Venkatesh Iyer has played just four balls off him and fallen once. Can they be KKR’s kryptonite?DC
Phil Salt and Sunil Narine have been phenomenal for KKR up top•BCCI
Team news and impact player strategy
Delhi Capitals: David Warner (finger injury) and Ishant Sharma (back spasms) will need another week to regain full fitness, and are unlikely to be available for the KKR clash. Prithvi Shaw also missed the previous game with illness, and his availability is yet to be ascertained. If Shaw makes it, he will slot back into the top of the order with Abishek Porel sliding lower down replacing Kumar Kushagra. DC are otherwise unlikely to make any other changes to their XII.
Rasikh Salam has been making the impact as the Impact Player in the last two games and DC are expected to continue with him.
Probable XII: 1 Prithvi Shaw/Abishek Porel, 2 Jake Fraser-McGurk, 3 Shai Hope, 4 Rishabh Pant (capt & wk), 5 Tristan Stubbs, 6 Abishek Porel/Kumar Kushagra, 7 Axar Patel, 8 Kuldeep Yadav, 9 Lizaad Williams, 10 Mukesh Kumar, 11 Khaleel Ahmed, 12 Rasikh Salam
Kolkata Knight Riders: Mitchell Starc missed KKR’s previous game with a finger injury and it’s unclear whether he is fit yet. If he does make it, he is likely to come back in place of Dushmantha Chameera. Anukul Roy and Venkatesh Iyer were the Impact swaps in KKR’s previous game. There is a chance, KKR could go with either Anukul or Suyash Sharma as their impact sub. Depending on the surface, they could also go for Vaibhav Arora as one of the options.
Probable XII: 1 Phil Salt, 2 Sunil Narine, 3 Angkrish Raghuvanshi, 4 Shreyas Iyer, 5 Venkatesh Iyer, 6 Rinku Singh, 7 Andre Russell, 8 Ramandeep Singh, 9 Dushmantha Chameera/Mitchell Starc, 10 Varun Chakravarthy, 11 Harshit Rana 12 Anukul Roy/Suyash Sharma
In the spotlight: Jake Fraser-McGurk and Sunil Narine
It’s not just the volume of runs that the Jake Fraser-McGurk has scored this year, but also how he has scored them. Among openers who’ve scored at least 100 runs in the powerplay this season, Fraser-McGurk’s strike rate of 252.08 is the highest. He has already struck 22 sixes in IPL 2024, climbing to joint-fifth on the list in just five innings. Fraser-McGurk is just coming off a 27-ball 84 against Mumbai Indians and will want to continue in the same vein.
At 35, Sunil Narine is truly living up to the definition of an allrounder. No other KKR batter has more runs than Narine’s 357 in IPL 2024. No other KKR bowler has more wickets than Narine’s ten in IPL 2024. He is going at an economy of 6.96 this season, with the second-best being Arora’s 9.57 and has picked up at least a wicket in every game. In KKR’s previous game, where PBKS chased down 261 in the 19th over, Narine went at an economy of 6. KKR will desperately hope for the Narine magic to continue for as long as possible.
Pitch and conditions
Runs have flowed at Eden Gardens this year, and that’s unlikely to change. Teams have opted to bowl in each of the five games so far, with dew often making its presence felt later in the night. There is an excessive heat warning in Kolkata with the temperature hovering around the 40 degree mark during the day. The humidity will play a major factor.
Stats that matter
- The DC spinners have taken the most wickets (21) in IPL 2024, while KKR are third on this list at 18.
- KKR’s quicks have the worst economy in IPL 2024 – 11.25; DC are marginally behind on 11.16.
- Shreyas Iyer needs six runs to complete 3000 runs in the IPL.
- Shreyas Iyer has fallen to Kuldeep Yadav twice in seven T20 innings, but has struck at 176.92 against him. He has an excellent record against Axar Patel in the IPL – a strike rate of 155.0 and an average of 62.0.
- Rishabh Pant has struck Andre Russell for 52 runs in 24 balls in the IPL at a strike rate of 216.7, but also fallen to him three times in seven innings.
Quotes
“If you look at the bowling side, they are coming out with so many variations. They have been trying but still they have been hit. Now, that is the only challenge. It is very hard for the bowlers to go in the middle and bowl.”
KKR coach Chandrakant Pandit on what has been a batter-dominated tournament so far
