Sunil Narine the opener in focus as Kolkata Knight Riders, Sunrisers Hyderabad look for first points
Sunrisers have Kane Williamson and Mohammad Nabi to choose from as Mitchell Marsh's replacement
Shashank Kishore
25-Sep-2020
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Sunil Narine's batting in the powerplay threw opponents off gear for quite a while after the Kolkata Knight Riders first adopted the strategy in 2017. However, that experiment may be on its last legs if the short ball continues to trouble Narine. The numbers don't paint a pretty picture for him: 76 balls, 13 dismissals, an average of 7.53. Till 2018, he struck his runs at 175. Since last year, his strike rate has come down drastically to 126.
In the Knight Riders' tournament opener, James Pattinson dismissed Narine with a short ball. Sunrisers Hyderabad don't have a genuine quick - they are full of swing bowlers, but it's a prospect that should excite them. So does Narine still hold his place as a bowler? Most definitely: 4-0-22-1 in a game where Mumbai Indians made 195 says so. His action may have been remodelled, the bite isn't quite the same as earlier, but there are enough tricks in his bag still.
And who opens then if he drops down the order? The Knight Riders played Nikhil Naik in the first game, but the experiment didn't work. Dropping him after one outing could be a tad unfair. Maybe there's a case for them to give him another chance, and the freedom to play his way. In domestic cricket, Naik has the reputation of being quite a hitter even though his strike rate is only 115. There is also another option in Rahul Tripathi. It's unlikely the team will tamper too much with the rest of the XI.
As for the Sunrisers, they didn't do much wrong for most parts of their opening game against the Royal Challengers Bangalore. At no stage did they allow Virat Kohli's side to break free while batting and they waltzed their way through the new ball courtesy Jonny Bairstow and Manish Pandey. However, the middle order, entirely Indian on the day, failed to see off the game. Young Priyam Garg and Vijay Shankar, the allrounder, had a platform to close out the game but they faltered. They must be hurting, and would be eager to correct that.
In the news
Likely XIs
Kolkata Knight Riders: 1 Sunil Narine, 2 Shubman Gill, 3 Dinesh Karthik (capt, wk), 4 Nitish Rana, 5 Eoin Morgan, 6 Andre Russell, 7 Nikhil Naik/Rahul Tripathi, 8 Pat Cummins, 9 Kuldeep Yadav, 10 Shivam Mavi, 11 Sandeep Warrier
Sunrisers Hyderabad: 1 Jonny Bairstow (wk), 2 David Warner (capt), 3 Manish Pandey, 4 Priyam Garg, 5 Kane Williamson/Mohammad Nabi, 6 Vijay Shankar, 7 Abhishek Sharma, 8 Rashid Khan, 9 Bhuvneshwar Kumar, 10 Sandeep Sharma, 11 T Natarajan/Khaleel Ahmed
Strategy punt
Stats that matter
Shashank Kishore is a senior sub-editor at ESPNcricinfo