Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) take on Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) as Pat Cummins won the toss and elected to bowl first in their Indian Premier League (IPL) 2024's opener at the Eden Gardens stadium in Kolkata on March 23.
What do the captains say?
KKR captain Shreyas Iyer, after losing the toss said:
“Feel fantastic (talking about his recovery from back injury). I have been training well and played a few games as well. The spinners have been bowling tremendously over the past few seasons and all of them are lethal in their own way. I see a bit of dryness on this wicket and hopefully it will help them. Salt, Narine, Russell and Starc are playing today"
Meanwhile Cummins, after the toss, said:
“We gonna have a bowl, wicket looks pretty good. Jansen, Klaasen and Markram are the other three. This is my first game for Sunrisers, it's been awesome in the camp to the lead-up and the confidence is really high in the group.”
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Kolkata Knight Riders' Playing XI
Philip Salt(w), Venkatesh Iyer, Shreyas Iyer(c), Nitish Rana, Rinku Singh, Andre Russell, Sunil Narine, Ramandeep Singh, Mitchell Starc, Harshit Rana, Varun Chakaravarthy
Sunrisers Hyderabad (Playing XI):
Mayank Agarwal, Rahul Tripathi, Aiden Markram, Heinrich Klaasen(w), Abdul Samad, Shahbaz Ahmed, Marco Jansen, Pat Cummins(c), Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Mayank Markande, T Natarajan.
KKR vs SRH's Head-to-Head
In their head-to-head battles throughout the IPL, Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) have dominated Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH). Out of the 25 matches played between these two teams, KKR has emerged victorious on 16 occasions, while SRH has only managed to win 9. There was also one tied match.
Pitch Report
"The outfield looks tremendous, weather conditions are absolutely perfect. The dimensions - 67 metres and 62 metres square, 75 metres straight down the ground. It's not a big ground. I see a lot of runs, this surface is an even surface. There's a little tinge of grass on it but brown grass. This is an absolute belter for the batters and I expect to see a lot of runs on this surface. Any hope for the bowlers? Last year, the average first innings score was 193 and wrist spinners had a little bit of say. In both line-ups, I see a lot of experienced bowlers and they have to go to that experience to protect their figures. No team that bats first should feel comfortable with a score of over 200," Ian Bishop and Brian Lara analysed the pitch.
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