Published: May 03, 2017, 06:53 PM (IST)
Edited: May 04, 2017, 01:16 AM (IST)
Hello, good evening and welcome to CricketCountry’s live cricket blog and updates’ post for the Match No. 41 in the ongoing Indian Premier League (IPL) 2017, between the two popular sides — Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) and Rising Pune Supergiant (RPS) — at Eden Gardens, Kolkata. We at CricketCountry will be bringing you the live cricket scores and updates from the clash. Kolkata and Pune share a bit of history. Sourav Ganguly, KKR’s first captain, was not retained by the franchise in 2011. He went on to play for the Pune side in the next two seasons. The franchise that represented the city then, was Pune Warriors India. That is another story…
The rivalry between the cities continues… A Gautam Gambhir–MS Dhoni clash always makes an intense headline. Not to forget, Kolkata’s own Manoj Tiwary, who had scored the IPL-winning runs for KKR in 2012, now plays for the Pune camp and will return home to play an ‘away’ game. And his equation with Gambhir is very well-known. Full cricket scorecard: KKR vs RPS, Match 41
In the first-leg of the clash, KKR emerged victorious and RPS will look forward to reverse the tides. In conditions more suited to seam bowling, RPS may be tempted to bring back Lockie Ferguson into the equation. Just two games back, the express Kiwi pacer won RPS a game against the star-studded Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB). With 6 wins from 10 games, RPS are at the fourth spot in the points table, they will look to pocket 2 quick wins to seal a spot in the playoffs.
Meanwhile, KKR will hope to have exorcised the ghosts of Hyderabad where they were ‘Warner-ed’ as their coach Jacques Kallis claimed. The Gambhir-led unit are at the second spot in the points table. A win will take them to the much-desired 16-point mark and to reach there tonight, they will have to cross the Steven Smith-Ben Stokes hurdle.
Squads:
Kolkata Knight Riders: Gautam Gambhir (c), Robin Uthappa (wk), Shakib Al Hasan, Yusuf Pathan, Manish Pandey, Umesh Yadav, Sunil Narine, Chris Woakes, Nathan Coulter-Nile, Suryakumar Yadav, Kuldeep Yadav, Piyush Chawla, Darren Bravo, Ishank Jaggi, Chris Lynn, Colin de Grandhomme, Trent Boult, Rishi Dhawan, Sheldon Jackson, Ankit Rajpoot, Sayan Ghosh, Rovman Powell, Ramsingh Sanjay Yadav
Rising Pune Supergiant: Steven Smith (c), MS Dhoni (wk), Manoj Tiwary, Ajinkya Rahane, Ashok Dinda, Rajat Bhatia, Mayank Agarwal, Ben Stokes, Imran Tahir, Deepak Chahar, Adam Zampa, Daniel Christian, Jaydev Unadkat, Usman Khawaja, Ankit Sharma, Faf du Plessis, Baba Aparajith, Ishwar Pandey, Shardul Thakur, Rahul Tripathi, Ankush Bains, Saurabh Kumar, Lockie Ferguson, Jaskaran Singh, Milind Tandon, Rahul Chahar
