It’s time for the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2024 to end as Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) and Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) face off in Qualifier 1 of the tournament. The first playoff match between the teams will take place at the Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad on Tuesday (May 21).
Kolkata Knight Riders and Sunrisers Hyderabad also faced each other earlier in the league stage. The match between the teams was exciting as it went all the way and saw the Shreyas Iyer-led team win the game by just 4 runs. However, the pressure of the playoffs is something else and whoever handles it well wins.
The head-to-head history between KKR and SRH is quite one-sided. Kolkata Knight Riders have been extremely dominant as they have won 17 games out of the 26 matches between the teams while SRH emerged victorious in 9 games.
Kolkata Knight Riders finished the league stage in the number 1 position as they won 9 games out of the 14 they played and lost only 3 games which speaks volumes about their performance. On the other hand, the defeat in the match between KKR and RR ensured that SRH occupied the second place in the points table.
The KKR vs SRH match promises to be an exciting clash as both the teams played a dominant record in the league stage. While KKR in their last match defeated Mumbai Indians, Sunrisers Hyderabad crushed Punjab Kings in their last match.
The winner of the game will advance to the final, while the loser will have another chance to reach the summit clash. However, both teams would be eager to win the match and get the desired rest before the final.
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Sunrisers Hyderabad captain Pat Cummins won the toss and opted to bat first in the game against KKR. He spoke about the positive attitude within the locker room and while speaking at the draw he explained:
“We will have a bat, it looks like a good wicket and we will hope for a high-scoring game. The batting group has been incredible for us and hopefully more of the same tonight. We played practically with the same eleven as the last game.”
KKR captain Shreyas Iyer, on the other hand, stated that they wanted to play first because they wanted to see what they wanted to chase. He also talked about the pressure there will be and reflected on the team’s season.
“I would have loved to bowl. I chatted with the curator and he told me that it is a mixed soil, let’s see how it plays, hoping for a good game. It is important that we maintain momentum and stay in the present. Great achievement and everyone is proud of it, we go game by game and we have to be positive about what is going to happen here. “We are going with the same team.”
KKR vs SRH: Impact Players
kkr: KS Bharat, Nitish Rana, Sherfane Rutherford, Manish Pandey, Anukul Roy
SSR: Glenn Phillips, Washington Sundar, Sanvir Singh, Jayden Unadkat, Umran Malik
KKR vs SRH: Playing XI
Riders of the Knights of Calcutta(Playing XI): Rahmanullah Gurbaz (w), Sunil Narine, Venkatesh Iyer, Shreyas Iyer (c), Rinku Singh, Andre Russell, Ramandeep Singh, Mitchell Starc, Harshit Rana, Varun Chakaravarthy, Vaibhav Arora.
Sunrisers Hyderabad (playing XI): Travis Head, Abhishek Sharma, Rahul Tripathi, Nitish Reddy, Heinrich Klaasen (w), Abdul Samad, Shahbaz Ahmed, Pat Cummins (c), Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Vijayakanth Viyaskanth, T Natarajan
