Limping Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) take on reeling Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) as Shreyas Iyer-led side won the toss and opted to bat first in their Indian Premier League (IPL) clash on Saturday (May 14).
"We have played on this surface the other day and we were looking to bat as well. Natarajan and Washington are back. Jansen is back in for Farooqi as well. We haven't been quite at our best in the last few games. So we want to turn that around," SRH skipper Kane WIlliamson said before the match.
"We will bat first here. If you the record here, teams batting first have done well and batting first also suits us. Forced to make changes this time. Pat is injured, so Umesh comes in and Sam comes in for Sheldon Jackson. We came to the core strength we started with and we got a good start," KKR captain Shreyas Iyer said after winning the toss.
Meanwhile, a series of losses after a five-match winning streak has dropped SRH to the sixth spot with 10 points and they would need to win all the remaining three games to salvage any hopes of making it to the play-offs.
With 10 points, KKR, however, are on the brink of elimination. Shreyas Iyer's men have just two more matches to go and wins in both will only take them to 14 points, which might not be enough with Rajasthan Royals and Royal Challengers Bangalore already sitting pretty in the top four with 14 points from 12 games.
Pitch report
"We are down to the final game in Pune. It started off with 210 scored, but in the last few games we have seen the run rate come down. From 9.2 it came down to 6.1 in the last game. Balls per boundary has also gone up. There is a fair bit of grass and looks live and green to me. It is firm as well. There will be something for the pacers. This pitch is rolled on nicely, so it might not grip as much. But it seems to me that the batters will have the last laugh in Pune," Deep Dasgupta analyses the pitch.
Kolkata Knight Riders' Playing XI:
Venkatesh Iyer, Ajinkya Rahane, Nitish Rana, Shreyas Iyer(c), Sam Billings(w), Rinku Singh, Andre Russell, Sunil Narine, Umesh Yadav, Tim Southee, Varun Chakaravarthy
Sunrisers Hyderabad's Playing XI:
Abhishek Sharma, Kane Williamson(c), Rahul Tripathi, Aiden Markram, Nicholas Pooran(w), Shashank Singh, Washington Sundar, Marco Jansen, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, T Natarajan, Umran Malik.
