Lions receive Raina boost against depleted KKR

Thursday, May 19, 2016
Start time 2000 local (1430 GMT)

On the eve of their second last league game, against Gujarat Lions, that can seal their playoff spot, Kolkata Knight Riders suffered a major blow with the loss of Andre Russell to an injury he picked up against Royal Challengers Bangalore. Apart from being a vital batsman in the slog overs, Russell is Knight Riders' highest wicket-taker in the season so far, with 15 wickets at an economy rate of 7.97. On what is expected to be a batting-friendly Green Park pitch, and against a line-up that contains Brendon McCullum, Aaron Finch, Suresh Raina and Dwayne Bravo, Russell's loss would be huge, especially while bowling in the Powerplay overs. Their batting, though, looks settled with an in-form Gautam Gambhir at the top, followed by a consistent middle order.

Lions, on the other hand, will be boosted by the arrival of their captain Suresh Raina, who returns from paternity leave. After kickstarting their campaign with six wins in their first seven matches, Lions suffered four losses in their next five matches. The most harrowing of those came against Royal Challengers in their last game, in which they slid to a 144-run defeat, the largest margin in IPL history. The defeat had severe effects on their net run rate (currently -0.747), and their best chance of qualifying is by winning both their games. A loss to Knight Riders will still keep them alive, though.

Another concern for Lions will be their failure to surge in the latter half of the innings. In this IPL, they have the second-fastest run rate in the first ten overs - 8.33 (behind Royal Challengers' 8.36), but in the second half, they have been scoring at 7.66 - the worst among all teams. They are coming off quite a long lay-off - just one match in the last ten days - and will be eager to jump to second place with a win.

Gujarat Lions LWLLL (last five matches, most recent first)
Kolkata Knight Riders LWLWW

Piyush Chawla's smart use of the googly, and a very quick quicker one have helped him overshadow the likes of Shakib Al Hasan and Sunil Narine this season. Chawla has not let Narine's poor returns affect his team's fortunes, and - along with Russell - has led Knight Riders' bowling charge with 11 wickets at an economy rate of 7.72.

With 286 runs at a strike rate of 126.54 in 11 matches, Suresh Raina has had a quiet season so far. He will look to turn things around with two vital games ahead, and help accelerate the scoring in the end overs.

In all probability, Akshdeep Nath will make way for Raina. Barring any last-minute injuries, no other changes are expected.

Gujarat Lions (probable): 1 Brendon McCullum , 2 Dwayne Smith, 3 Suresh Raina (capt), 4 Dinesh Karthik (wk), 5 Aaron Finch, 6 Dwayne Bravo, 7 Ravindra Jadeja, 8 Praveen Kumar, 9 Dhawal Kulkarni, 10 Shivil Kaushik, 11 Pravin Tambe

While there is no like-for-like replacement for Russell, fellow West Indian Jason Holder is likely to get his second match of the season as his fast bowling and big hitting on a small ground could be key factors ahead of Chris Lynn and Colin Munro.

Kolkata Knight Riders (probable): 1 Robin Uthappa (wk), 2 Gautam Gambhir (capt), 3 Manish Pandey, 4 Yusuf Pathan, 5 Shakib Al Hasan, 6 Suryakumar Yadav, 7 Jason Holder, 8 Piyush Chawla, 9 Sunil Narine, 10 Ankit Rajpoot, 11 Morne Morkel

"I believe the batsmen will have the edge over the bowlers, and a score of 180 plus can be scored by the team batting first," curator Shiv Kumar told the Times of India before the first ever IPL match at Green Park. The pitch, that wore a pale green look, was hard and full of runs for Thursday. Temperatures of 40 degrees Celsius have been forecast for the evening, with no rain expected.

"We just need to believe we can win from any situation. We just need to work hard on our game, work hard in our mind and hopefully everything will fall in place."
Suresh Raina, the captain, urges his players to stay positive for their last two matches