The IPL 2024 group stages are over and it is now time for the knockouts. Qualifier 1 will see the top 2 sides, Kolkata Knight Riders and Sunrisers Hyderabad locking horns. It is advantage for KKR who are well rested after their last 2 matches were washed out by rain.
High flying Sunrisers Hyderabad too won’t make it easy. Under captaincy of Pat Cummins, SRH has been a force to reckon with. The Kolkata Knight Riders faced SRH in their opening game and it came down to the last over. A gem of a last over from Harshit Rana ensured a 4 run for the Knights in a high scoring affair.
Advantage for KKR
KKR head into the clash being the firm favourites. Apart from being the team to beat, KKR is well rested. It is safe to say, KKR played their last full game on 5th May. Following which they had a 16 over game against Mumbai Indians. The next two matches against GT and RR were washed away.
SRH would be wary about the rich vein of form which the KKR team is currently possessing. On the other hand, a win for the Knight would see them appearing directly in the finals at Chepauk. Furthermore, with Qualifiers 1 taking place at the Narendra Modi stadium, KKR would be happy to take part in a high run scoring affair.
Not too Cold – SRH
As for the Sunrisers Hyderabad, they too would dearly love to take the opportunity to securing a place in the finals. A loss will see them playing Qualifiers 2 with the winner of the Eliminator. Possessing a team filled with big hitters, it will be a clash of titans.
A rather fighting fire with fire approach, Pat Cummins would be keen to exact revenge on their opponents. While KKR edge out as the favourites in the tie, it would be very foolish to rule SRH out from the fixture.
KKR Playing XI: Sunil Narine, Rahmanullah Gurbaz (wk), Shreyas Iyer (capt), Venkatesh Iyer, Nitish Rana, Rinku Singh, Andre Russell, Ramandeep Singh, Mitchell Starc, Anukul Roy, Harshit Rana
SRH predicted XI: Travis Head, Abhishek Sharma, Rahul Tripathi, Nitish Kumar Reddy, Heinrich Klaasen (wk), Shahbaz Ahmed, Abdul Samad, Sanvir Singh, Pat Cummins (capt), Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Vijayakanth Viyaskanth
Kolkata Knight Riders Squad: Shreyas Iyer (c), KS Bharat (wk), Rahmanullah Gurbaz (wk), Rinku Singh, Angkrish Raghuvanshi, Sherfane Rutherford, Manish Pandey, Andre Russell, Nitish Rana, Venkatesh Iyer, Anukul Roy, Ramandeep Singh, Varun Chakravarthy, Sunil Narine, Vaibhav Arora, Chetan Sakariya, Harshit Rana, Suyash Sharma, Mitchell Starc, Dushmantha Chameera, Sakib Hussain, Mujeeb Ur Rahman, Gus Atkinson and Allah Ghazanfar
Sunrisers Hyderabad Squad: Abhishek Sharma, Travis Head, Heinrich Klaasen (wk), Aiden Markram, Abdul Samad, Nitish Reddy, Shahbaz Ahmed, Pat Cummins (c), Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Jaydev Unadkat, T Natarajan, Mayank Markande, Umran Malik, Anmolpreet Singh, Glenn Phillips (wk), Rahul Tripathi, Washington Sundar, Upendra Yadav (wk), Jhathavedh Subramanyan, Sanvir Singh, Vijayakanth Viyaskanth, Fazalhaq Farooqi, Marco Jansen, Akash Maharaj Singh, Mayank Agarwal.
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