Today, Sunday 11 April 2021 for us in down under would be early 12th April Bangla speaking cricket admirers from all across the world specially from Kolkata and Bangladesh would be glued to electronic media watching KKR starting its mission IPL 14 against another popular outfit SRH having Aussie blaster David Warner and Afghanistan rock stars Rashid, Mujeeb and Nabi.
KKR is not all Bangalees. But our poster boy Shakib Al Hasan from the land of Royal Bengal would be there. Shahrukh Khan and Juhi Chawla would also appear with Bollywood flavor and SRH with Rising Suns.
Shakib played for KKR for several years and also played for SRH. Our cutter master Mustafiz (The Fizz) played the key role for making SRH win the trophy once. This year Mustafiz would play for Rajsthan Royals.
KKR won it twice in 2012 and 2014, SRH won only once in 2016. The two evenly matches teams are expected to make it’s a tight contest with several impact players of power cricket appearing for the two popular teams.
Squads
KKR: Eoin Morgan, Shakib Al Hasan, Nistish Rana, Pradish Krishna, Sandeep Wariar, Sibam Mavi, Kamlalesh Nagarkoti, Lockie Ferguson, Pat Cummins, Kuldeep Yadav, Varun Chakrawarthy, Sunil Narin, Andre Russel, Dinesh Kartik, Rinku Singh, Rahul Tripathi, Harbhajan Singh, Karun Nair, Ben Cuttings, Tim Sneifert, Shubman Gill, Pawan Negi, Venkatesh Iyer, Vaibhav Aror and Sheldon Jackson.
SRH:
David Warner, Abhishekh Sharma, Basil Thampi, Bhuvneswar Kumar, Jonny Bairstow, Kane Williamson, Manish Pandey, Mohammad Nabi, Rashid Khan, Sandeep Sharma, Shabaz Nadeem, Shreevats Goswami, Siddarth Kaul, Khaleel Ahmed, T Natarajan, Vijay Shankar, Wriddhiman Saha, Abdul Samad, Mitchell Marsh, Jason Holder, Priyam Garg, Virat Singh.
Both team has galaxy of international stars and Indian talents. It will challenge for English Captain Eoin Morgan and Australian David Warner peaking the right combinations as the four foreign recruits have to be kept in mind. With Morgan and Warner being captains they can choose only three.
Off course much would depend on the wicket and the strength and weakness of the opposition. Taking into account Shakib’s out of the world performance as all rounder batting at three for Bangladesh at ICC world cup in 2019 he can have a head start for KKR. In that case Morgan, Shakib, Cummins / Ferguson and Andre Russel can an option. Sunil Narin in that case cannot find a place in the starting XI. Morgan may even go for aggressive option with both Cummins and Ferguson firing their guns together leaving both Narin and Russel out. In the first match with players setting their bearings it may not be a bad ploy. But if Warner, Bairstow and Pandey settle they would love pace to tweet.
On the other hand SRH too many quality batsmen to choose from. They have three quality Afghans including X Factor Rashid Khan. Warner have to choose one from Bairstow, Williamson as he himself and Rashid perhaps would be in the starting XI in the first match. SRH has also set local combination in the bowling attack with Bhuvneswar and Natarajan leading the way.
In my Opinion the playing XI can be
Kolkata Knight Riders:
Shuvman Gill, Nitish Rana, Shakib Al Hasan, Dinseh Karthik, Eoin Morgan, Andre Russel, Sbam Mavi, Pat Cummins, Kuldeep Yadav, Pardish Krishna, Harbhajan Singh,
SRH:
David Warner, Manish Pandey, Kane Williamson, Vijay Shankar, Shreevats Goswami, Wriddhiman Shaha, Rashid Khan, Priyam Garg, T Natarajan, Sandeep Sharama and Bhuvneswar Kumar.
BDST: 1550 HRS, APR 11, 2021
SMS
