Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) will take on Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) in their first game of IPL 2024 at the Eden Gardens at 7.30 PM. The match will feature the two richest buys of IPL – Mitchell Starc and Pat Cummins – facing off against each other.
Two-time winners KKR will eye to start off their campaign on a victorious note as they hunt for a third title. Meanwhile, it will be interesting to see what route SRH will take after finishing at the bottom of the table in IPL 2023.
KKR vs SRH: How the battle shapes up
KKR will enter the game boasting of a strong batting line-up. Shreyas Iyer returns as the side’s skipper after sitting out of the previous edition owing to injury. With batters like Nitish Rana, Venkatesh Rana, Andre Russell, Rinku Singh and more, the side’s batting line-up is undoubtedly explosive.
When it comes to KKR’s bowling, the side made a key reinforcement by roping in Mitchell Starc in the IPL 2024 auction. However, one worrying sign for KKR will be over dependence on Starc owing to an inexperienced pace attack. The side will rely on its experienced spinners Varun Chakravarthy, Sunil Narine, Mujeeb ur Rahman and Suyash Sharma to deliver.
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SRH’s state going into IPL 2024 is unpredictable. The question mark begins from who would be the side’s possible openers. Travis Head is one option, but it remains to be seen who the side will prefer to send in as his partner. Mayank Agarwal could be that possible option.
The side boasts of a strong bunch of all-rounders including Washington Sundar, Glenn Philips, Aiden Markram.
What will be SRH’s strong suit going into IPL 2024 will be their bowling attack. Led by new skipper Pat Cummins, the bowling line-up comprises of Marco Jansen, Bhuvaneshwar Kumar, Mayank Markande, Umran Malik and T Natarajan.
KKR vs SRH squads
Kolkata Knight Riders: Philip Salt(w), Venkatesh Iyer, Shreyas Iyer(c), Nitish Rana, Andre Russell, Rinku Singh, Ramandeep Singh, Sunil Narine, Mitchell Starc, Harshit Rana, Varun Chakaravarthy, Manish Pandey, Srikar Bharat, Mujeeb Ur Rahman, Anukul Roy, Rahmanullah Gurbaz, Chetan Sakariya, Sherfane Rutherford, Vaibhav Arora, Dushmantha Chameera, Angkrish Raghuvanshi, Sakib Hussain, Suyash Sharma
Sunrisers Hyderabad: Mayank Agarwal, Travis Head, Abhishek Sharma, Aiden Markram, Heinrich Klaasen(w), Washington Sundar, Abdul Samad, Pat Cummins(c), Bhuvneshwar Kumar, T Natarajan, Umran Malik, Rahul Tripathi, Glenn Phillips, Jaydev Unadkat, Anmolpreet Singh, Upendra Yadav, Mayank Markande, Jhatavedh Subramanyan, Sanvir Singh, Fazalhaq Farooqi, Marco Jansen, Shahbaz Ahmed, Akash Maharaj Singh, Nitish Reddy
