The 56th match of the IPL 2022 will see Mumbai Indians (MI) taking on Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) at the DY Patil Stadium in Navi Mumbai on May 9, 2022. MI is already out of the race of qualifications for playoffs, while KKR needs to win all of their matches to mathematically remain in contention.
The last time these two teams had met, Pat Cummins had slammed the joint-fastest fifty in 14 balls and hit Daniel Sams for 35 runs in an over to win the match for KKR from an impossible situation.
MI will be playing freely in their remainder of matches with no pressure of qualification and this might see them giving chances to some uncapped players in this match. KKR, on the other hand, have never been able to cement their opening combination or the whole XI the entire tournament.
Keeping this in mind, here is the Team COC Predicted Playing XIs for the MI v KKR match.
MUMBAI INDIANS
MI have nothing to lose now that they have been eliminated from the playoffs race. Finally, in their previous match, Rohit Sharma and Ishan Kishan got into some runs, while Suryakumar Yadav and Tilak Varma have been their main run-getters thus far in the whole IPL 2022.
However, the man in question is Kieron Pollard, whose bat has not done any talking this season apart from a cameo here and there and his form proved to be one of the reasons for MI’s elimination, apart from their openers not scoring any runs.
Tim David showed why he should have been playing in all matches while MI also needed to trust Dewald Brevis and give him a few more games probably in place of Pollard.
Bowling-wise, MI have themselves to blame as they didn’t pick any experienced spinner to lead with M Ashwin and Mayank Markande being their top spinners. Kumar Karthikeya has impressed.
Daniel Sams will be waiting to avenge his humiliation in their previous meeting with KKR, while Riley Meredith has proven to finally give some support to Jasprit Bumrah, whose form itself hasn’t been that good.
KOLKATA KNIGHT RIDERS
Indecisiveness in choosing the proper playing XI, the poor form of all the batters they tried at the opening spot, and failures of the bowling department have all resulted in Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) finding themselves at the 9th spot in the points table with the 4 wins in 11 matches.
They are virtually out of the race for playoffs but need to win all four matches to stay in contention from here on.
KKR might go back to Ajinkya Rahane or Sam Billings or Venkatesh Iyer for the opening spot as none of them, including Aaron Finch has been able to give them the starts they wanted. Shreyas Iyer has been their best batter by far, jointly with Nitish Rana and now Rinku Singh, all of them have contributed somehow to the team’s cause.
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Andre Russell has been very good with the bat and the bat, while Sunil Narine has been KKR’s only bowler to have a good economy and also pick wickets. He has been back to his best.
Pat Cummins might come back into the XI, and with Umesh Yadav suffering from a calf injury, Harshit Rana might continue with Tim Southee leading the attack. Varun Chakravarthy, who was dropped from the XI, might get some more chances to impress and get his form back.
MI COC Predicted Playing XI:
Ishan Kishan (WK), Rohit Sharma (C), Suryakumar Yadav, Tilak Varma, Kieron Pollard, Tim David, Daniel Sams, M Ashwin, Kumar Karthikeya, Jasprit Bumrah, Riley Meredith
KKR COC Predicted Playing XI:
Baba Indrajith (WK), Venkatesh Iyer, Shreyas Iyer (C), Nitish Rana, Rinku Singh, Andre Russell, Sunil Narine, Pat Cummins, Tim Southee, Harshit Rana, Varun Chakravarthy
