Indian Premier League (IPL) 2022 is not even a week old, and the Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) are already set to play their third match of the season. This time, they take on high-flying Punjab Kings (PBKS) at the Wankhede stadium on Friday night. The two teams had contrasting outcomes in their respective last matches, against Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB). While Punjab chased down 206, Kolkata went down fighting, defending 128.
Kolkata's 19 wins against Punjab is their most against a single franchise. However, in order to improve on this already impressive track record, their batters need to put up a better show than what we saw in the last match. After being put into bat, the batters seemed a bit clueless. Overaggressive at times, they lost wickets at regular intervals in pursuit of quick runs.
Their head coach Brendon McCullum has defended that approach. He felt the batters were unlucky at times. In fact, McCullum even suggested his boys to emulate a similar approach against the Punjab bowling attack as well.
Punjab, on the other hand, will be boosted with the arrival of Kagiso Rabada, who is now out of quarantine. At the same time, there is uncertainty around the fitness of KKR's Andre Russell, who suffered a blow to his leg while fielding on Wednesday night. If he cannot make it, KKR may have to play one of Chamika Karunaratne or Mohammed Nabi as their overseas all-rounder.
Toss and dew will continue to play a crucial role this fixture. Six out of seven matches this season have been won by chasing teams.
Likely XIs
Kolkata Knight Riders: Ajinkya Rahane, Venkatesh Iyer, Nitish Rana, Shreyas Iyer (c), Sam Billings, Sheldon Jackson (wk), Andre Russell, Sunil Narine, Tim Southee, Umesh Yadav, Varun Chakravarthy
Punjab Kings: Mayank Agarwal (c), Shikhar Dhawan, Liam Livingstone, Bhanuka Rajapaksa (wk), Shahrukh Khan, Odean Smith, Raj Bawa, Arshdeep Singh, Kagiso Rabada, Sandeep Sharma, Rahul Chahar
Fantasy tips
- There is pace and bounce on the Wankhede surface, and the new ball has swung here. Pick the likes of Umesh and Southee in your XI.
- Rajapaksa had a excellent start of his IPL career. He will enjoy facing the KKR spinners in the middle over. Do back him to get runs against them.
- Rana got starts twice but failed to capitalise. He will been keen to make a statement in this game.
Where to watch
Live streaming of Match 8 of IPL 2022 between Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) and Punjab Kings (PBKS) will start at 7.30 PM IST on April 1st. You can watch the match on the Star Sports Network and Hotstar.