Kolkata Knight Riders vs Delhi Daredevils, IPL 2016 Match No.2 at Eden Gardens: Preview
After Wankhede the Indian Premier League (IPL) circus heads to one of India’s most iconic stadiums, the Eden Gardens at Kolkata. Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) take on Delhi Daredevils (DD) in Match No.2 of ninth edition of IPL. This will the first match for both the teams this year. KKR will be lead by Gautam Gambhir while DD will see former Indian left-arm spearhead Zaheer Khan skipper them. DD have gone through a wholesome of changes including back room management where Indian great Rahul Dravid will mentor them. KKR has also seen change in staff with Jacques Kallis replacing former coach Trevor Bayliss and Simon Katich acting his assistant. Meanwhile, Brett Lee is set to replace Wasim Akram as KKR’s bowling mentor. LIVE CRICKET SCORECARD: Kolkata Knight Riders vs Delhi Daredevils , 2nd T20 Match, IPL 2016
Both KKR and DD have clashed a total of 16 times with the former winning 9 matches, while losing just 7 times. KKR will aim to win their third IPL title after capturing the trophy in 2012 and 2014. KKR will be feel unlucky to miss out on Sunil Narine, after he flew back to home-country due to family emergency. However, KKR have an able substitute in Brad Hogg. Going into IPL 9, KKR picked up interesting players in the auction to start of with New Zealand all-rounder Colin Munro and West Indian all-rounder Jason Holder to add to their already strong all-rounding army in Shakib Al Hasan, Suryakumar Yadav and Yusuf Pathan. READ: IPL 2016 Schedule, Time Table, Fixture PDF Download
KKR’s bowling attack looks solid with Umesh Yadav and Jaydev Unadkat along with the likes of Morne Morkel and John Hastings along with spinners Piyush Chawla and Kuldeep Yadav to add to their spinning duo. Their batting will be taken care by the like of Manish Pandey, Robin Uthappa and captain Gambhir himself.
DD on the other hand have Quinton de Kock, who has been in good form in T20 World Cup 2016 for South Africa; they also have JP Duminy and Imran Tahir who can be a handful on the Kotla pitch. DD will be on cloud nine after bagging West Indies all-rounding sensation Carlos Brathwaite amongst their ranks. With a strong base of Indian home-grown talent in Shreyas Iyer, Karun Nair and Amit Mirsha, DD have a solid squad to play with. DD will hope that inputs given by Dravid will help a youngster laden side upstage much more experienced teams in IPL 9. This will also be the Zaheer’s second stint as captain after he skippered Mumbai in Ranji Trophy.
Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) team for IPL 2016: Gautam Gambhir, Kuldeep Yadav, Manish Pandey, Piyush Chawla, Robin Uthappa, Sheldon Jackson, Suryakumar Yadav, Umesh Yadav, Yusuf Pathan, Sunil Narine, Andre Russell, Brad Hogg, Chris Lynn, Morne Morkel, Shakib Al Hasan, Jaydev Unadkat, Ankit Singh Rajpoot, John Hastings, Jason Holder, Colin Munro, Rajgopal Sathish, Manan Ajay Sharma.
Delhi Daredevils (DD) team for IPL 2016: Zaheer Khan, Amit Mishra, Shreyas Iyer, Mohammad Shami, Shahbaz Nadeem, Mayank Agarwal, Jayant Yadav, Nathan Coulter-Nile, Imran Tahir, JP Duminy, Quinton de Kock, Pawan Negi, Chris Morris, Sanju Samson, Carlos Brathwaite, Karun Nair, Rishabh Pant, Sam Billings, Chama Milind, Pratyush Singh, Mahipal Lomror, Saeed Khaleel Ahmed, Akhil Herwadkar, Pawan Suyal, Joel Paris (ruled out).
Time: (20:00 local | 14:30 GMT)
(Vishal Mehra is reporter at CricketCountry, who enjoys his weekly dose of anime, and plays cricket once a white moon. His twitter handle is @vishal_oxyjinn.)