Cricket Indian Premier League Prediction

Kolkata Knight Riders vs Sunrisers Hyderabad - Match Preview

🏏 14 April 2023 - 18:00 GMT +0

The iconic Eden Gardens will host match #19 of this year’s Indian Premier League (IPL) campaign between two-time champions (2012 and 2014) Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) and 2016 winners Sunrisers Hyderabad. Just two points separated them in the league table but the Knight Riders will bring a confidence-boosting 15-8 H2H lead into this match.

Not that the Knight Riders (W2, L1) would currently need any further help with their morale after their incredible record-breaking three-wicket win over the Gujarat Titans that followed an 81-run trouncing of the Royal Challengers Bangalore after a narrow DLS loss to Punjab Kings. The Titans had posted a more than healthy 204/4 from their 20 overs with KKR’s Sunil Narine spinning his magic to the tune of a match-best 3/33 from four overs. It was in the KKR chase that the magic happened. A Rashid Khan hattrick had reduced Kolkata to 155/7 off 16.3 overs, leaving number five batter Rinku Singh and number nine Umesh Yadav at the crease. With just six balls remaining, KKR required 29 to win. Rinku, having called Umesh through for a single off the first ball, then smashed five consecutive sixes to take the points.

Before the KKR faithful get too carried away, that win came courtesy of batters down the order. Coach Chandrakant Pandit will no doubt have concerns over the form of his top order batters who, as of match #17 had the second lowest average powerplay score (45.33) and were losing on average 2.33 most wickets in the powerplay, the most of all franchises. Pandit will now be able to select Bangladeshi power hitter Litton Das, which will no doubt intensify the pressure on Afghan Rahmanullah Gurbaz to justify his place as a batter with opening partner Narayan Jagadeesan also available to the wicketkeeper.

There was good news too for Sunrisers Hyderabad who, after two successive defeats against the Rajasthan Royals (72 runs) and the Lucknow Super Giants (five wickets), notched up their first points of the season when beating the Punjab Kings by eight wickets on Sunday. Wrist spinner Mayank Markande’s first outing saw him return figures of 4/15 to help restrict the Kings to 143/9 off their allotted 20 overs. In their chase, all four batters that took to the crease made double figures with Rahul Tripathi top scoring with a classy 74 off 48 balls (10x4, 3x6).

With main spinner Adil Rashid sidelined to make way for Mayank, the Sunrisers may well play both, making a formidable spin pairing. That win against Punjab will certainly be morale-boosting. Captain Aiden Markram is more than happy with how his side is currently performing when he stated after the match that Hyderabad is “a great franchise to be a part of. It is the first win for us and hopefully we can take some momentum going forward”.

⚡ Players to watch: KKR’s leading wicket-taker so far is Sunil Narine, who has aggregated figures of 6/89 at 7.41rpo from his 12 overs. Meanwhile, the Sunrisers’ expensive signing Harry Brook has had a dreadful start to the season having accumulated just 29 runs from three innings with a highest score of 13. He is yet to make his mark. Will it be against the Knight Riders?

📋 Stat attack: So far this season, the Knight Riders’ batters have accrued 31 sixes, compared with the Sunrisers who have scored just 11.

• In fact, Hyderabad conceded the most sixes in seven of their last eight matches.
• Sunil Narine has restricted Aiden Markram to less than a run-a-ball in their H2H T20 matchup, conceding 20 runs off 23 balls.
• Andre Russell has faced six balls in T20s from Washington Sundar, three of which he hit for six (SR: 333.33)!
• Russell also averages 63.00 at a strike rate of 225 against the bowling of Bhuvneshwar Kumar in IPL cricket.
• No Sunrisers bowler has taken more than two total powerplay wickets so far this season.
• The all-time average first innings score at Eden Gardens is 163. However, all but one of the last ten cleared at least 175 runs.
• KKR won 24 of their 35 home matches when winning the toss (69%).
• T Natarajan has dismissed Nitish Rana in two of four innings but at the cost of 57 runs from 31 deliveries.