IPL Eliminator Preview – Sunrisers Hyderabad vs Kolkata Knight Riders

Sport360 staff 20:43 16/05/2017
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  • Who will come out on top? [Sportzpics].

    Sunrisers Hyderabad and Kolkata Knight Riders will face off in the Indian Premier League [IPL] Eliminator at the M. Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bengaluru on Wednesday, with the winner booking a place in Qualifier 2.

    Having finished third and fourth respectively in the league stage, Hyderabad and Kolkata come into this encounter knowing that they cannot afford any slip-ups as every game from here on in is a knockout match for them.

    The Sunrisers managed to win the title from the same situation in 2016 and will be keen to bring their A-game to the table as they look for a repeat of last year’s heroics.

    In David Warner and Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Hyderabad have the Orange Cap and Purple Cap holders in their ranks. Kolkata were, in fact, on the receiving end of one of Warner’s finest IPL knocks, as the Sunrisers captain scored 126 from 59 deliveries in one of their encounters earlier this season.

    The Knight Riders lost a bit of form towards the end of the league stage, losing four out of their last five matches. The batting failed to chase down not-so-difficult targets in the last couple of games and that will be a source of concern for Gautam Gambhir’s side.

    In the league stage this season, Kolkata got the better of Hyderabad in their first encounter, while the result was reversed when the sides met for the second time.

    Ahead of the match, we have the latest team news, start time and date, as well as how you can watch all the action from the UAE.


    DATE, TIME, VENUE INFO

    Date: May 17, 2017 (Wednesday)

    Time: 18:30 GST, 20:00 local time (IST), 14:30 GMT

    Venue: M. Chinnaswamy Stadium, Bengaluru


    WHERE TO WATCH, LIVE STREAMING INFO

    TV: UAE – OSN Sports Cricket HD, India – Sony Six, Sony Six HD (English), Sony Max, Sony Max HD 3 (Hindi), UK – Sky Sports

    Online streaming: hotstar.com, Hotstar app (in India only)

    LIVE: Sport360.com


    TEAM NEWS, SQUADS, PREDICTED XIs

    SRH SQUAD: David Warner, Shikhar Dhawan, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Moises Henriques, Mustafizur Rahman, Naman Ojha, Deepak Hooda, Ricky Bhui, Kane Williamson, Siddarth Kaul, Bipul Sharma, Ashish Nehra, Yuvraj Singh, Ben Cutting, Barinder Sran, Abhimanyu Mithun, Vijay Shankar, Tanmay Agarwal, Mohammad Nabi, Ekalavya Dwivedi, Rashid Khan, Pravin Tambe, Chris Jordan, Ben Laughlin, Mohammed Siraj.

    The Sunrisers will miss the experience of Ashish Nehra as the Indian left-arm pacer has been ruled out of the playoffs due to a hamstring injury.

    “Ashish Nehra won’t be fit for remainder of the tournament,” confirmed coach Tom Moody, a day before the contest.

    On the other hand, Hyderabad have concerns over the availability of Yuvraj Singh and Mohammad Nabi with both players set to go through fitness tests before the match.

    PREDICTED SRH XI: Warner (c), Dhawan, Henriques, Yuvraj/Hooda, Shankar, Ojha (wk), Nabi/Williamson, Rashid, Bhuvneshwar, Kaul, Siraj.

    KKR SQUAD: Gautam Gambhir, Sunil Narine, Kuldeep Yadav, Andre Russell, Manish Pandey, Suryakumar Yadav, Piyush Chawla, Robin Uthappa, Shakib Al Hasan, Chris Lynn, Umesh Yadav, Yusuf Pathan, Sheldon Jackson, Ankit Singh Rajpoot, Trent Boult, Chris Woakes, Rishi Dhawan, Nathan Coulter-Nile, Rovman Powell, R Sanjay Yadav, Ishank Jaggi, Darren Bravo, Sayan Ghosh, Colin de Grandhomme.

    It’ll be interesting to see if Sunil Narine continues to open the batting for the Knight Riders, considering that he didn’t do too well in the role in the two league matches against Hyderabad.

    On the other hand, Narine managed to score the joint-fastest half-century in IPL history at the Chinnaswamy Stadium just 10 days ago which could prompt the Kolkata team management to stick with the strategy of going hard in the Powerplay overs with Narine and Chris Lynn.

    On the bowling front, Kolkata have a decision to make when it comes to choosing between Trent Boult or Nathan Coulter-Nile as their overseas pacer.

    PREDICTED KKR XI: Narine, Lynn, Gambhir (c), Uthappa, (wk), Pandey, Pathan, de Grandhomme, Kuldeep, Umesh, Boult/Coulter-Nile, Rajpoot.


    FORM

    (Last five matches – with latest match first)

    SRH: W W L L W

    KKR: L L W L L


    MATCH PREDICTION

    This is a very tough match to predict.

    Hyderabad seem to be the more complete team and that sees us predicting a win for them. But if Narine and/or Lynn get going, things can change in a flash.

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