KOLKATA: Mumbai Indians will look to seal a playoff berth when they face an out-of-sorts Kolkata Knight Riders in the Indian Premier League at the Eden Gardens here Sunday.
Skipper Rohit Sharma roared back to form with his first half-century of the IPL as Mumbai Indians crushed MS Dhoni-less Chennai Super Kings by 46 runs, their biggest defeat at home Saturday.
One win away from assuring their last-four berth, Mumbai Indians will look forward to take on their ‘bunny’ Kolkata Knight Riders — against whom they have an eight-match winning streak in a 18-5 head-to-head record. The last time KKR had won against MI was four years ago.
With three matches left in the league stage, the two teams clash for the first time this season tomorrow, with the return leg slated for May 5.
KKR are in the midst of a six-match losing streak and seemed to have lost the plot completely.
Karthik led from the front with a career-best 97 not out to set a challenging 176 target for Rajasthan Royals here in the last match as they looked to snap their losing streak but their pacers came a cropper and the visitors secured a thrilling three-wicket win.
Starting at elimination, KKR would hope for their batting and bowling to click as a unit with just three matches to go.
At the moment nothing is going in favour of the Shah Rukh Khan-owned franchise, something that reminds of their disastrous show in 2009 when the team had lost nine in a row, in a 10-match winless run.
This will be KKR’s last home match of the season and the team will look to win it for the fans who have come in huge numbers and packed the stadium in every match.
Mumbai Indians, on the other hand, will look at captain Rohit to give them a flying start.
Teams (from):
Kolkata Knight Riders: Dinesh Karthik (c), Robin Uthappa, Chris Lynn, Shubman Gill, Andre Russell, Carlos Brathwaite, Sunil Narine, Piyush Chawla, Kuldeep Yadav, Nikhil Naik, Joe Denly, Shrikant Mundhe, Nitish Rana, Sandeep Warrier, Prasidh Krishna, Lockie Ferguson, Harry Gurney, Matt Kelly, KC Cariappa and Yarra Prithviraj.
Mumbai Indians: Rohit Sharma (C), Quinton de Kock (WK), Suryakumar Yadav, Yuvraj Singh, Kieron Pollard, Hardik Pandya, Krunal Pandya, Mitchell McClenaghan, Jason Behrendorff, Mayank Markande, Rahul Chahar, Jasprit Bumrah, Anmolpreet Singh, Siddhesh Lad, Ankul Roy, Evin Lewis, Pankaj Jaiswal, Ben Cutting, Ishan Kishan, Aditya Tare, Rasikh Salam, Barinder Sran, Jayant Yadav, Beuran Hendricks.
Match starts 8pm. (AGENCIES)
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