The MA Chidambaram Stadium is all set to host the summit clash of the 17th edition of the Indian Premier League (IPL) on Sunday, May 26. Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) and Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) will be seen engaging in the final showdown as the marquee T20 tournament nears its end.
Kolkata have the wood over Sunrisers Hyderabad as the Shreyas Iyer-led side has won 18 out of the 27 contests played between the two. Sunrisers have won only nine games against the two-time IPL champions therefore KKR will take the field with a psychological advantage.
MA Chidambaram Stadium Pitch Report
The groundstaff has decided to use a red-soil pitch for the final which characteristically favours the batters more than anyone else. Hence, fans can expect the batters to come to the party on Sunday unlike Qualifier 2 which was played at the same venue on Friday.
The Sunrisers Hyderabad spinners dominated Qualifier 2 as it was played on a black-soil surface and the shot-making became difficult as the game progressed.
The KKR captain confirmed that a red-soil wicket will be used in the final showdown, however, there is still no clarity on whether the dew factor will play a major role.
"I feel the pitch is completely different from what they played yesterday," Shreyas said in the pre-match presser. "It's a red soil (pitch) and yesterday, if I'm not wrong, it was a black-soil wicket. We don't know how the wicket is going to play tomorrow and also looking at the match from the TV, we felt the dew factor would play a great role, but it didn't and the ball started spinning."
Kolkata Knight Riders' squad:
Rahmanullah Gurbaz (wk), Sunil Narine, Venkatesh Iyer, Shreyas Iyer (c), Rinku Singh, Andre Russell, Ramandeep Singh, Mitchell Starc, Vaibhav Arora, Harshit Rana, Varun Chakaravarthy, Anukul Roy, Manish Pandey, Nitish Rana, Srikar Bharat, Sherfane Rutherford, Dushmantha Chameera, Angkrish Raghuvanshi, Sakib Hussain, Suyash Sharma, Allah Ghazanfar, Chetan Sakariya
Sunrisers Hyderabad's squad:
Travis Head, Abhishek Sharma, Rahul Tripathi, Nitish Reddy, Aiden Markram, Heinrich Klaasen (wk), Abdul Samad, Pat Cummins (c), Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Jaydev Unadkat, T Natarajan, Umran Malik, Sanvir Singh, Glenn Phillips, Mayank Markande, Shahbaz Ahmed, Vijayakanth Viyaskanth, Washington Sundar, Mayank Agarwal, Anmolpreet Singh, Upendra Yadav, Jhatavedh Subramanyan, Fazalhaq Farooqi, Marco Jansen, Akash Maharaj Singh
