Power-packed Kolkata Knight Riders look to extend Mumbai Indians' winless UAE streak

Before IPL 2020 began, Mumbai Indians were everyone's favourites, and with good reason. A batting order that had four or five players capable of changing a match, a bowling attack that married striking ability with parsimony, great depth, and possibly the best think-tank in the business. All of that still holds true, but the opening game loss against Chennai Super Kings showed up some cracks in the team. It also showed the effects of little to no cricket for a majority of the players, with uncharacteristic sloppiness in the field, and errors while batting.

Are they cracks Kolkata Knight Riders can exploit successfully? They certainly have the tools to do so, and as the franchise that start the latest in this IPL, they will have had a chance to suss the conditions in the UAE well.

However, one of the issues Mumbai have is a quick thinning of the batting order after No. 7, which could conceivably be a problem for the Knight Riders too. The injury to Nathan Coulter-Nile affects Mumbai's batting depth, and though he trained with the team on Tuesday, whether plays on Wednesday remains to be seen. For the Knight Riders, the batting order almost takes the form of a bell curve, thanks to possibly the competition's most power-packed middle order in Eoin Morgan, Dinesh Karthik and Andre Russell.

Mumbai's bowling is potent, and one off-day against the Super Kings wouldn't warrant grave changes, unless it's for fitness reasons. The Knight Riders will be hoping that Sunil Narine is good for four overs. He was very effective when he bowled in the CPL, but he played as often as he didn't in the competition. The Knight Riders have had a couple of promising quicks in their ranks for what seems like ages, without having them fit. But both Kamlesh Nagarkoti and Shivam Mavi enter this season free of injury worries, and you would imagine at least one of them will be in the starting XI.

Kolkata Knight Riders: 1 Shubman Gill, 2. Sunil Narine, 3 Nitish Rana, 4 Eoin Morgan, 5 Dinesh Karthik (capt, wk), 6 Andre Russell, 7 Rahul Tripathi/Rinku Singh, 8 Pat Cummins, 9 Kuldeep Yadav, 10 Kamlesh Nagarkoti, 11 Prasidh Krishna

Mumbai Indians: 1 Rohit Sharma (capt), 2 Quinton de Kock (wk), 3 Suryakumar Yadav, 4 Saurabh Tiwary, 5 Kieron Pollard, 6 Hardik Pandya, 7 Krunal Pandya, 8 James Pattinson/Nathan Coulter-Nile, 9 Rahul Chahar, 10 Trent Boult, 11 Jasprit Bumrah

ALSO SEE: KKR vs MI live score 23rd September 2020