Sunrisers Hyderabad
Playing at home, the Sunrisers would be aiming to open their IPL account in this match against KKR. They are led by the Australian opener David Warner, who played a scintillating knock against Royal Challengers Bangalore.
However, Hyderabad's bowlers did not have an answer when RCB’s AB de Villiers, Kohli and Sarfaraz launched a blitz. Also, other than Warner, no Hyderabad batsmen were up to the task of chasing the mammoth target set by Royal Challengers. Sunrisers lost the match by 45 runs.
David Warner would not want to tinker much with the four foreign players — David Warner, Moises Henriques, Eoin Morgan and Mustafizur Rahman. However, he could possibly bring in New Zealand left-arm bowler Trent Boult in place of Henriques.
Shikhar Dhawan should fire at the top of the order along with David Warner, Otherwise the middle-order batsmen like Morgan would be under extreme pressure. Morgan should bring in his vast experience to hold the middle order together with Naman Ojha, who should rise to his potential.
The bowlers led by Bhuvneshwar Kumar have to give early breakthroughs otherwise Kolkata Knight Riders can get away with a good score. The young Bangladesh bowler Mustafizur Rahman had a great match against Royal Challengers Bangalore and should be used well.
Sunrisers have a good bench with Kane Williamson waiting in the dug-out. The Hyderabad team is handicapped by Yuvraj Singh’s injury. If Yuvraj Singh is fit, then the middle order will be strengthened. To me, Abhimanyu Mithun would a good option for Sunrisers Hyderabad against Kolkata Knight Riders.
My Sunrisers Hyderabad playing XI:
David Warner (captain), Shikhar Dhawan, Naman Ojha, Eoin Morgan, Mustafizur Rahman, Karn Sharma, Trent Boult or Moises Henriques, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Ashish Reddy, T. Suman and Abhimanyu Mithun.
Kolkata Knight Riders
This Gautam Gambhir-led team opened their IPL-9 campaign on a winning note by thrashing Delhi Daredevils by 9 wickets. But Kolkata lost convincingly to Mumbai Indians in their second match, done in by some brilliant batting from Rohit Sharma.
Their batting relies on Gambhir and Uthappa firing at the start and both had decent outings in the last two matches. Their middle order is also decent with Manish Pandey, Andre Russell and Yusuf Pathan.
Gambhir has to bring his ace bowler Sunil Narine into the scheme of things, if they have to make it to the top.
My suggestion of four foreign players for Kolkata would be Andre Russell, Sunil Narine, Brad Hogg and John Hastings.
The Australian veteran Brad Hogg has two good matches in his pocket. Shakib al-Hasan, a good all-rounder, is also waiting in the wings. Gambhir may pick him according to the pitch conditions.
My possible KKR playing XI would be
Gautam Gambhir (captain), Robin Uthappa, Manish Pandey, Yusuf Pathan, Andre Russell, Sunil Narine or Shakib al-Hasan, Brad Hogg, John Hastings, Jaydev Unadkat, Umesh Yadav and Piyush Chawla
The full teams
Kolkata Knight Riders: Gautham Gambhir (capt), Piyush Chawla, John Hastings, Brad Hogg, Jason Holder, Sheldon Jackson, Kuldeep Yadav, Chris Lynn, Manan Sharma, Morne Morkel, Colin Munro, Sunil Narine, Manish Pandey, Yusuf Pathan, Ankit Rajput, Andre Russell, Rajgopal Satish, Shakib Al Hasan, Jaydev Unadkat, Robin Uthappa, Suryakumar Yadav and Umesh Yadav.
Sunrisers Hyderabad: David Warner (capt), Ashish Reddy, Ricky Bhui, Bipul Sharma, Trent Boult, Ben Cutting, Shikar Dhawan, Moises Henriques, Deepak Hooda, Siddarth Kaul, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Abhimanyu Mithun, Eoin Morgan, Mustafizur Rahman, Ashish Mehra, Naman Ojha, Vijay Shanker, Karn Sharma, Barinder Sran, T Suman, Aditya Tare, Kane Williamson and Yuvraj Singh.
