After playing the IPL final last year, both teams will clash again today, both have lost two matches in Kolkata. Despite the presence of stars, the start of Kolkata Knight Riders and Sunrisers Hyderabad in IPL-18 has not been satisfactory. Both the teams have played three matches each so far. In these, they have lost two and won one match. Both the teams played in the IPL final last year, where Kolkata won.

Both teams will want to get back on the winning track.
When both the teams will face each other once again on Thursday, their eyes will be on getting back on the winning track. KKR captain Ajinkya Rahane had said after the defeat to Royal Challengers Bangalore in the first match of the season that there was no need to panic, but after two defeats in three matches, the morale of his team must have fallen a bit. Especially the crushing defeat against Mumbai must have shaken them from within.

Spinners can get the advantage.
KKR lost only three matches in the last season. Now the focus will once again be on the pitch of Eden Gardens. After the seven-wicket defeat to RCB, the pitch has been criticized a lot. There is pressure on the Bengal Cricket Association to prepare a pitch that suits the spinner-studded KKR team. KKR has great spinners like Sunil Narine, Moeen Ali, and Varun Chakraborty.

Shami will have to show his magic at Eden Gardens.

Sunrisers Hyderabad had scored the second-highest score of IPL, 286 runs, in the first match, but in the last two matches, this team has not been able to score even 200 runs. Abhishek Sharma has not been able to open. His strategy of extremely aggressive batting has also not proved to be solid. In the last two matches, he lost to Lucknow and Delhi Capitals. Cummins' team will have to improve its performance a lot to avenge the defeat in the last IPL final. It is expected that Cummins and Shami can be dangerous on the Eden Gardens pitch. Shami has not impressed in this IPL so far.

The probable playing 11 of both the teams is as follows
Kolkata Knight Riders: Quinton de Kock (wicketkeeper), Sunil Narine, Ajinkya Rahane (captain), Angkrish Raghuvanshi, Venkatesh Iyer, Rinku Singh, Andre Russell, Ramandeep Singh, Spencer Johnson, Harshit Rana, Varun Chakraborty.
Sunrisers Hyderabad: Travis Head, Abhishek Sharma, Ishan Kishan, Nitish Kumar Reddy, Heinrich Klaasen (wicketkeeper), Aniket Verma, Abhinav Manohar, Pat Cummins (captain), Zeeshan Ansari, Harshal Patel, Mohammed Shami.

PC Social media