The ‘Boys from Bollywood’ take on the team owned by the ‘King of Bollywood‘. It is a top-notch clash as the two arch-rivals Mumbai Indians and Kolkata Knight Riders face each other at the MA Chidambaram Stadium in Chennai for Match number 6 on 13th April (Tuesday).
While Mumbai Indians are still one of the strongest sides on paper they did end up losing their first match against the Royal Challengers Bangalore, courtesy AB de Villiers. This showed us that when Mr 360 gets going no one can stop him not even one of the best teams in franchise cricket. Mumbai who is considered to be slow starters will be hoping to turn their fortunes and get back to winning ways vs KKR.
Kolkata Knight Riders, on the other hand, had a solid start to their tournament. They ticked all the necessary boxes during their 10 run win against the Sunrisers Hyderabad. KKR is expected to go in with the same playing 11 and they will be hoping to continue their winning run. The only problem which KKR will have is the batting form of the explosive Andre Russell. The West Indies big-hitter had a poor outing in 2020 and scored only 5 runs against SRH in their first match this year. Eoin Morgan & Co will be hoping that their power hitter can find form and what better match to do it than vs the defending champions.
The batting department for the Mumbai Indians will be the same with a solid middle order. Hardik Pandya and Kieron Pollard failed to fire the last game. Those two were the reason Mumbai scored the most number of runs in the death overs in 2020. MI would want them to go big for this game. Quinton de Kock will be back for this match as confirmed by Zaheer Khan.
The batting of KKR was absolutely phenomenal last match. The two youngsters Nitish Rana and Rahul Tripathi came out all guns blazing and hit the SRH bowlers around the park. Dinesh Karthik also played a very crucial innings scoring 22 of just 9 deliveries and helped KKR finish on a high.
Mumbai Indians probably have the best bowling attack in the tournament with Trent Boult and Jasprit Bumrah really controlling the game well. These two pace spearheads are joined by South African Marco Jansen who showed us what he can do with a decent bowling performance in the first game. The only cause of concern for them will be the spinners who have been leaking runs and since the Chennai pitch is on the slower side, the spinners have a greater part to play.
KKR will be really happy with their bowling performance from their first game. Although their mystery spinner Sunil Narine did not play they seemed to do pretty well and will be hoping to continue.
Head to Head: Kolkata Knight Riders vs Mumbai Indians
Mumbai Indians have clearly dominated against Kolkata Knight Riders in their battle over the years.
Played: 27
Mumbai won: 21
Kolkata won: 6
In their last 11 encounters, MI has won 10 times so they clearly have the upper hand when it comes to the history between the teams.
Pitch and Weather Conditions
The temperature in Chennai is going to be hot and humid. The temperature will be just touching thirty and there will be 65% humidity. There is a chance of a little rain in the morning but the weather is expected to be clear for the match. The pitch if going by the last match will be assisting slow bowlers but going by the previous matches here this season there is enough assistance for the batsman as well.
Average First Innings score-160
Team Batting First has won-48
Team Batting Second has won-34
Team News
Kolkata Knight Riders – They have no injuries and therefore are expected to field the same 11 as they did in their match vs Sunrisers Hyderabad
Mumbai Indians – Quinton de Kock will be back in the side and will be seen opening with the Mumbai skipper Rohit Sharma which means that Chris Lynn will have to drop back on the bench.
Squads
Kolkata Knight Riders: Eoin Morgan (C), Shubman Gill, Dinesh Kartik, Nitish Rana, Rahul Tripathi, Andre Russell, Shakib Al Hasan, Pat Cummins, Prashidh Krishna, Varun Chakravarthy, Kuldeep Yadav, Ben Cutting, Lockie Ferguson, Sheldon Jackson, Harbhajan Singh, Gurkeerat Singh Mann, Venkatesh Iyer, Vaibhav Arora, Kamlesh Nagarkoti, Karun Nair, Sunil Narine, Pawan Negi, Sandeep Warrier, Tim Seifert, Shivam Mavi.
Mumbai Indians: Rohit Sharma (C), Ishan Kishan (wk), Suryakumar Yadav, Hardik Pandya, Kieron Pollard, Krunal Pandya, James Neesham, Nathan Coulter-Nile, Rahul Chahar, Trent Boult, Jasprit Bumrah, Piyush Chawla, Dhawal Kulkarni, Saurabh Tiwary, Aditya Tare, Adam Milne, Chris Lynn, Jayant Yadav, Anmolpreet Singh, Quinton de Kock, Anukul Roy, Mohsin Khan, Arjun Tendulkar, Marco Jansen, Yudhvir Singh.