Kolkata Knight Riders know they can't cut corners anymore as the side take on bottom-placed Sunrisers Hyderabad on Sunday. The purple-clad outfit is currently fourth in the table with 10 points but any further hiccups mean that evenly-tied Mumbai Indians and Punjab Kings will get ahead of them in the battle for the fourth and final spot for the playoffs.
Kolkata still will miss the services of a key player in the crucial game.
Injury updates and replacements
Kolkata Knight Riders will be playing their second match this tournament without star all-rounder Andre Russell, who had a hamstring pull while fielding against Chennai Super Kings earlier this week. To jog reader's mind, KKR went into the second phase of IPL without Australia’s Pat Cummins but found a replacement in Tim Southee, which remains their only change in the squad.
Squad Eoin Morgan (c), Dinesh Karthik, Andre Russell, Kamlesh Nagarkoti, Kuldeep Yadav, Lockie Ferguson, Nitish Rana, Prasidh Krishna, Gurkeerat Singh Mann, Sandeep Warrier, Shivam Mavi, Shubman Gill, Sunil Narine, Rahul Tripathi, Varun Chakravarthy, Pawan Negi, Tim Seifert, Shakib al Hasan, Sheldon Jackson, Vaibhav Arora, Karun Nair, Harbhajan Singh, Ben Cutting, Venkatesh Iyer
Follow IPL 2021 Live Coverage Here
For SRH, David Warner is expected to remain out of the team after the opener ran out of favour with a string of bad performances. Jason Roy was named replacement and the English batter proved his worth with a half-century. Key pacer T Natarajan remains out of the team after testing COVID-19 positive last week with J&K pacer Umran Malik replacing him in the squad.
Ahead of the second leg, the side lost wicketkeeper-batsman Jonny Bairstow and the SRH announced Sherfane Rutherford as a replacement.
Squad Kane Williamson (c), David Warner, Manish Pandey, Virat Singh, Priyam Garg, Abdul Samad, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Khaleel Ahmed, Sandeep Sharma, Siddharth Kaul, Umran Malik, Abhishek Sharma, Shahbaz Nadeem, Vijay Shankar, Mohammad Nabi, Rashid Khan, Jonny Bairstow, Wriddhiman Saha, Shreevats Goswami, Basil Thampi, Jason Holder, Jagadeesha Suchith, Kedar Yadav, Mujeeb ur Rahman, Jason Roy
Head to Head
Matches Played: 20
KKR Won: 13
SRH Won: 7
