IPL 2024: Kolkata Knight Riders and Sunrisers Hyderabad gear up for the third match of the 17th season of the Indian Premier League on Saturday, March 23. With the return of Shreyas Iyer as captain and Gautam Gambhir as mentor, the Knight Riders would be itching to make an impact in the Indian cash-rich league, especially after failing to reach the playoffs in the last two seasons.
Meanwhile, SRH have appointed Pat Cummins as their new captain, replacing the twice SA20 winning skipper Aiden Markram. Cummins' appointment came as a bit of a surprise due to this but not to all as the Aussie star has already shown his mettle in Tests and ODIs as captain and would be looking to prove himself in the shortest format now. Ahead of this fascinating clash, here is how the pitch at the Eden Gardens is expected to play.
Eden Gardens pitch report:
The Eden Gardens pitch report is one of the batting paradises in the IPL. Last year, out of seven matches played at the Kolkata-based venue, there were four innings in which the 200-run mark was breached. The lowest score last year here was 149, made by KKR vs RR. The batters shall enjoy playing here. Batting first or bowling first is not a big concern with teams batting first winning four teams, and chasing sides winning three.
Eden Gardens - The Numbers Game
STATS - T20I
Total Matches - 11
Matches won batting first - 5
Matches won bowling first - 6
Average 1st innings Score - 155
Average 2nd innings Score - 137
Highest total recorded - 201/5 By PAK vs BAN
Lowest total recorded - 70/10 By BAN vs NZ
Highest score chased - 162/4 By IND vs WI
The lowest score defended - 186/5 By IND vs WI
Squads:
KKR squad: Shreyas Iyer (c), Nitish Rana, Rinku Singh, Rahmanullah Gurbaz, Phil Salt, Sunil Narine, Suyash Sharma, Anukul Roy, Andre Russell, Venkatesh Iyer, Harshit Rana, Vaibhav Arora, Varun Chakaravarthy, KS Bharat, Chetan Sakariya, Mitchell Starc, Angkrish Raghuvanshi, Ramandeep Singh, Sherfane Rutherford, Manish Pandey, Mujeeb Ur Rahman, Dushmantha Chameera, Sakib Hussain. Players injured/withdrawn: Jason Roy, Gus Atkinson.
SRH squad: Abdul Samad, Abhishek Sharma, Aiden Markram (c), Marco Jansen, Rahul Tripathi, Washington Sundar, Glenn Phillips, Sanvir Singh, Heinrich Klaasen, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Mayank Agarwal, T. Natarajan, Anmolpreet Singh, Mayank Markande, Upendra Singh Yadav, Umran Malik, Nitish Kumar Reddy, Fazalhaq Farooqi, Shahbaz Ahmed , Travis Head, Wanindu Hasaranga, Pat Cummins, Jaydev Unadkat, Akash Singh, Jhathavedh Subramanyan.
