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Having achieved a solitary victory in six games, the heat, both literally and figuratively, will be on the Kings XI Punjab when they meet the Kolkata Knight Riders on Saturday afternoon in Abu Dhabi. Against the Hyderabad Sunrisers on Thursday, they stepped up their bowling attack and threw left arm closer Arshdeep Singh to his death, but still ended up conceding 201. The move also stretched their tail, leaving them with four possible number 11s, and Mohammed Shami – in his last five. His coach, Anil Kumble, revealed during the game that team management had planned to bring in Chris Gayle, but a bout of food poisoning eventually ruled him out of the XI. If he recovers in time, he will likely replace Glenn Maxwell, who has worked for 48 runs in six innings with an average of 12 and a hit rate of 85.71.
Gayle’s return won’t necessarily give the Kings XI the balance they are looking for, but it could ease some pressure on captain KL Rahul, who has started slowly and then struggled to accelerate this IPL. Does he still have the T20 legend in him to deal with the fierce pace and rebound from Pat Cummins, who generally throws three overs in the power play for Knight Riders? The 41-year-old had retired from the CPL for personal reasons and has not played any competitive cricket since the Bangladesh Premier League in January.
The Knight Riders, by contrast, seem to have identified their best XI and are in the upper half of the scoreboard. This, despite the fact that Dinesh Karthik and Sunil Narine, the starter, did not achieve the maximum, and Kuldeep Yadav was left out or did not throw his full quota when he is in the XI. Against the Super Kings, Narine came in at No. 4 and prevented MS Dhoni from using Ravindra Jadeja. If the Knight Riders once again choose to hit Narine in the middle order, then he and Eoin Morgan could make life difficult for Ravi Bishnoi and Singh in the middle and the end.
In the news
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It remains to be seen if Gayle is eligible for this event.
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Rahul said he was impressed with Ishan Porel’s capless bowling on the nets and might take a look at it at some point. Is that any point Saturday against the Knight Riders?
Probably XI
Kings XI Punjab: 1 KL Rahul (captain), 2 Chris Gayle / Glenn Maxwell, 3 Mayank Agarwal, 4 Prabhsimran Singh (week), 5 Nicholas Pooran, 6 Mandeep Singh, 7 Mujeeb Ur Rahman, 8 Ravi Bishnoi, 9 Mohammed Shami, 10 Sheldon Cottrell , 11 Arshdeep Singh
Kolkata Knight Riders: 1 Rahul Tripathi, 2 Shubman Gill, 3 Nitish Rana, 4 Eoin Morgan, 5 Andre Russell, 6 Dinesh Karthik (capt & wk), 7 Sunil Narine, 8 Pat Cummins, 9 Kamlesh Nagarkoti, 10 Shivam Mavi, 11 Varun Chakravarthy
Strategy points
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The Kings XI don’t have too many death bowling options, so they might as well try Shami again and attack Morgan and Andre Russell with extra pace and rebound. Shami has fired Morgan once on five balls at T20, but Russell has the wood over the closer, with 84 runs from 31 balls and was only fired once. However, Shami remains the Kings XI’s best bet against the mighty middle order of the Knight Riders.
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Narine was booked for death against Dhoni in the previous Knight Riders game, but there is a case for him to take the new ball against the Kings XI. Rahul has a 231 strike rate against Narine in T20 cricket, but the spinner has eliminated Gayle five times while allowing 153 runs on 177 balls. Agarwal has also not beaten Narine, although the sample size is smaller: 19 16-ball runs, one ejection.
Statistics that matter
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Kings XI have the worst economy rate at death (13.44) and the third worst economy rate in powerplay (8.02)
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Nicholas Pooran has scored 156 against Narine in T20 cricket. Only their Kings XI captain Rahul (233), David Warner (159) and Tamim Iqbal (157) have a higher attack rate against Narine (minimum of 36 balls faced).
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Cummins has an economy rate of 6.75 in the first six overs. Among the bowlers who have thrown at least ten overs in this IPL powerplay, only T Natarajan, Anrich Nortje and Shami have performed better than Cummins. Cummins is also at a distance of 100 T20 terrains.
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Russell is on a strike of 300 T20 lots.
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