Kolkata Knight Riders will take on Gujarat Titans in ‘Match 35’ of the 2022 Indian Premier League at Navi Mumbai’s Dr DY Patil Sports Complex on 23 April. The high-stakes contest will see both sides eager to add three more points to their kitty.
Both these sides started their campaign with a bang. However, KKR has now lost three matches on the bounce and would thus like to get back to winning ways. Although the team seemed to have finally gotten their momentum back against Rajasthan, they were outdone by a couple of individual performances.
Gujarat Titans, on the other hand, are topping the points table with five wins in six games. They have been a team to beat this season as their bowling has been sharp and their senior players are stepping up with the bat.
What have they done so far?
Kolkata Knight Riders are currently placed seventh in the points table
Kolkata Knight Riders started their season on a positive note, beating Chennai Super Kings by 6 wickets in their first match. However, Iyer’s team failed to carry the winning momentum in their second match, where Royal Challengers Bangalore handed them a three-wicket defeat. However, the two-time champions made a stunning comeback to register back-to-back victories – winning by six wickets against Punjab Kings and by five wickets against Mumbai Indians.
They however have since succumbed to three defeats on the bounce – a 44-run loss against Delhi Capitals and soon followed that up with a seven-wicket loss against Sunrisers Hyderabad before going down against Rajasthan Royals by a mere margin of seven runs on Monday.
Gujarat Titans, meanwhile, started their journey in IPL with three consecutive wins. They defeated fellow newbies Lucknow Super Giants by five wickets in their first match and then followed it up with a 14-run win against Delhi Capitals.
Pandya’s team handed Punjab Kings a six-wicket defeat in their third match, but their winning streak was ended by Sunrisers Hyderabad in their fourth match. That being said, the Titans bounced back well and registered a 37-run win against Rajasthan Royals and followed that up by a three-wicket win against Chennai Super Kings on Sunday.
Head to Head Record
This will be the very first instance when the two sides play out each other in the history of the competition and hence head to head records are not applicable for this fixture. However, both the teams will be eager to kickstart this new rivalry with a win.
Key Players
Umesh Yadav: This has been a season of redemption for pacer Umesh Yadav, who was sparsely used by the Delhi Capitals in the last two editions. He is currently the leading wicket-taker for his team, having picked up 10 wickets in seven matches at an outstanding strike rate of 16.8. Yadav picked up two wickets each against Chennai Super Kings and Royal Challengers Bangalore, whilst he also got a four-fer against Punjab Kings.
Shubman Gill has scored 200 runs from six innings
Shubman Gill (Gujarat Titans): Shubman Gill had a terrific start to this campaign by already racking up 187 runs in the first four games with two 50+ scores 84 and 96. However, he failed to impress in the last two games scoring mere 13 runs from those matches and would thus like to get back to form and be amongst runs. Maintaining an average of 33 and a strike rate of 152, the youngster has done incredibly well to transform his game from being a slow-paced to a fast-paced aggressor.
Predicted Playing XI
Kolkata Knight Riders: Aaron Finch, Venkatesh Iyer, Shreyas Iyer (C), Sheldon Jackson (WK), Nitish Rana, Andre Russell, Sunil Narine, Pat Cummins, Umesh Yadav, Shivam Mavi, Varun Chakravarthy
Gujarat Titans: Rahmanullah Gurbaz (WK), Shubman Gill, Sai Sudharsan, Hardik Pandya (C), David Miller, Abhinav Manohar, Rahul Tewatia, Rashid Khan, Lockie Ferguson, Mohammed Shami, Darshan Nalkande
Prediction
Gujarat Titans have been mightily impressive in this year’s Indian Premier League and they will hope to improve on their record as they take on two-time IPL champions Kolkata Knight Riders.
GT has won five of their six games so far while it is just three wins from seven matches for KKR. That being said, the Kolkata-based team have lost each of their last three games and thus it is the Titans that are favoured to prevail with their consistency difficult to overlook.