Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) and Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) will clash in the 35th match of the ongoing IPL 2020. The match will be the first of the doubleheaders on October 18 and will be played at Abu Dhabi, starting from 3.30 PM IST.
Both teams are struggling to conjure up a string of victories. SRH is placed 5th on the points table with 3 wins and 6 points, while KKR is 4th with 8 points with 4 wins. However, both have struggled in recent times due to indifferent form.
This match might throw open the fight for the fourth spot in the playoffs as the winner might breathe a bit easy after gaining two points and for that, they need to pick the best possible playing XI.
Here is the TEAM COC Predicted Playing XIs for the SRH v KKR match.
SUNRISERS HYDERABAD (SRH)
Sunrisers Hyderabad must be ruing the fact that they went in for youth in the IPL 2020 auctions as they are now left with no experience to guide that youth in the middle. The likes of Abhishek Sharma, Priyam Garg, Virat Singh, and others don’t have the guide to talk them through a tough chase.
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Their overseas slots are full with Warner, Bairstow, Rashid, and Williamson being the best players for them in the ongoing IPL. They want to slot in Mohammad Nabi in the middle order for that experience, but cannot due to the lack of an Indian batsman in the squad to do that job.
Bowling-wise, T Natarajan has taken over the role of death overs yorker specialist in absence of Bhuvneshwar Kumar and has gotten tremendous support from Sandeep and Khaleel in that department.
KOLKATA KNIGHT RIDERS (KKR)
Kolkata Knight Riders made a huge change to their team, with Dinesh Karthik handing over the captaincy reins to Eoin Morgan before their last match against Mumbai Indians. However, that didn’t stop them from getting hammered by 8 wickets.
KKR has failed to string together a few wins to get that momentum going for them and one big reason for that is the unstable opening partnership. Gill has looked to bat through the innings, and with Narine out, Tripathi has been tasked with exploiting the field restrictions in the first six overs. But this has failed due to Gill’s overcautious approach which has put pressure on his partner.
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Andre Russell’s form with the bat is also one of the reasons, KKR has failed to hit big in the death overs. Meanwhile, Morgan, Karthik, and Rana have played some cameos, but no one had gone to score a big inning. No wonder they have only one century in IPL history so far, which came in the very first match from the bat of their present coach Brendon McCullum.
The bowling department has done its job with Varun and young Prasidh Krishna performing well under the leadership of Pat Cummins.
SRH COC Predicted Playing XI:
David Warner (C), Jonny Bairstow (WK), Kane Williamson, Manish Pandey, Priyam Garg, Virat Singh, Rashid Khan, Shahbaz Nadeem, Sandeep Sharma, Khaleel Ahmed, T Natarajan
KKR COC Predicted Playing XI:
Shubman Gill, Rahul Tripathi, Nitish Rana, Dinesh Karthik (WK), Eoin Morgan (C), Andre Russell, Pat Cummins, Chris Green, Shivam Mavi, Prasidh Krishna, Varun Chakravarthy
