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The third game of the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2024 is set to be a high-voltage encounter. Firstly, IPL history’s most expensive players – Kolkata Knight Riders’ (KKR) Mitchell Starc and Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) skipper Pat Cummins – will be in the spotlight. The two franchises have not had a good run in the past couple of players but with Shreyas Iyer coming back and Gautam Gambhir at the helm of things, KKR look dangerous with their new recruits. Also, SRH now look like the side that will be the dark horse in this season.
Iyer on the eve of KKR’s campaign opener confirmed that he is fit and ready to go. He was the missing piece in the puzzle for KKR in the previous season. Starc returning after a long hiatus is a massive boost and if he gets the new ball talking, SRH may end up playing the catch-up game against the hosts. Big hitters Rinku Singh and Andre Russell provide the cushion KKR need to follow a strong top order. Their spin trio of Sunil Narine, Varun Chakravarthy is bound to pose a few tough questions to SRH batters.
KKR’s last-minute addition
As Jason Roy pulled out of IPL 2024, KKR made a last-minute change by bringing in England’s wicketkeeper-batter Phil Salt. The change may be a blessing in disguise for KKR as Rahmanullah Gurbaz has not been in the best of forms of late. Salt is capable of getting the side off to blazing starts and it won’t be a surprise if he walks into the playing XI.
SRH face the problem of plenty
It may be a toss-up between Mayank Agarwal and Abhishek Sharma for the opening spot alongside Travis Head. As SRH have Aiden Markram and Heinrich Klaasen in their ranks, Cummins will be the only overseas bowlers which means they may have to leave out all-rounder Marco Jansen. The only way they can include Jansen is by dropping former skipper Markam. It will be interesting to see the team combination and impact player the SRH think tank opts for against KKR.
Head-to-head
KKR and SRH have played 25 games against each other. KKR have won 16 of these games. The last time SRH played at Eden Gardens, Harry Brook's maiden IPL century and Markram's half-century helped the visitors post 228/4 and win the match by 23 runs despite fifties from Nitish Rana and Shardul Thakur.
KKR IPL 2024 squad
Philip Salt(w), Venkatesh Iyer, Shreyas Iyer(c), Nitish Rana, Andre Russell, Rinku Singh, Ramandeep Singh, Sunil Narine, Mitchell Starc, Harshit Rana, Varun Chakaravarthy, Manish Pandey, Srikar Bharat, Mujeeb Ur Rahman, Anukul Roy, Rahmanullah Gurbaz, Chetan Sakariya, Sherfane Rutherford, Vaibhav Arora, Dushmantha Chameera, Angkrish Raghuvanshi, Sakib Hussain, Suyash Sharma
SRH IPL 2024 squad
Mayank Agarwal, Travis Head, Abhishek Sharma, Aiden Markram, Heinrich Klaasen(w), Washington Sundar, Abdul Samad, Pat Cummins(c), Bhuvneshwar Kumar, T Natarajan, Umran Malik, Rahul Tripathi, Glenn Phillips, Jaydev Unadkat, Anmolpreet Singh, Upendra Yadav, Mayank Markande, Jhatavedh Subramanyan, Sanvir Singh, Fazalhaq Farooqi, Marco Jansen, Shahbaz Ahmed, Akash Maharaj Singh, Nitish Reddy
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