KKR vs SRH Match Preview- IPL 2024, Match 3

KKR and SRH kick off their IPL 2024 campaign in Kolkata on Saturday, March 23. Kolkata Knight Riders finished seventh last year while SRH finished last. The two teams are looking to have a completely different season and they look to win yet another IPL title. 

Date and Venue

The KKR vs SRH IPL 2024 match will start from 08:00 pm IST at the Eden Gardens stadium in Kolkata. KKR plays only one home game in the first phase of IPL 2024. They play three games overall while Sunrisers Hyderabad plays four. 

KKR vs SRH Match Preview- IPL 2024, Match 3

Kolkata Knight Riders

The record signing of Mitchell Starc (24.75 crores) and the return of Gautam Gambhir as the team mentor were the two big news from the KKR camp ahead of IPL 2024. The return of Shreyas Iyer was another massive news. Iyer who scored over 400 runs in his first year for the Knight Riders in 2022 will look to use this campaign to get himself back to the Indian team. 

He was recently axed from the BCCI list of contracted players. The Trio of Shreyas Iyer, Nitish Rana, and Rinku Singh makes the KKR middle-order a formidable one. The signing of Phil Salt as a replacement for Jason Roy was another big move by KKR. 

Kolkata Knight Riders used 12 opening pair in the last two IPL seasons and Gautam Gambhir would ideally hope that the pair of Salt and Venkatesh Iyer gives them consistent starts at the top. With the ball, the KKR spin trio of Sunil Narine, Varun Chakravarthy, and Suyash Sharma make a formidable pairing as well. KKR roped in Mujeeb Ur Rahman as a backup for Sunil Narine. All in all the team looks good, the challenge for them is to perform the role assigned to them. 

KKR Squad 

Shreyas Iyer (c), Nitish Rana, Rinku Singh, Rahmanullah Gurbaz, Phil Salt, Sunil Narine, Suyash Sharma, Anukul Roy, Andre Russell, Venkatesh Iyer, Harshit Rana, Vaibhav Arora, Varun Chakaravarthy, KS Bharat, Chetan Sakariya, Mitchell Starc, Angkrish Raghuvanshi, Ramandeep Singh, Sherfane Rutherford, Manish Pandey, Mujeeb Ur Rahman, Dusmantha Chameera, Sakib Hussain. 

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Sunrisers Hyderabad 

Sunrisers Hyderabad went in for an overhaul of their complete squad. They were able to complete their squad of 25 players in the end and did have 8 overseas players as well. They named Pat Cummins as their skipper for the season. It will be interesting to see how he manages this team which has several international superstars. 

The real problem for the side will be to find the ideal team combination and figure out their best four overseas players. As of now, Wanindu Hasaranga will miss the first three games due to international commitments, which might make the selection a little easier. His availability for the fourth game is not yet known. 

SRH last made the playoffs in IPL 2021. Since then, they finished at the bottom half of the bale the next two years. The constant changes in the support staff and captaincy have not allowed the side to flourish. This year, they are coached by Daniel Vettori who has a good rapport with Pat Cummins as he is the assistant coach of the Australia national cricket team as well. 

 SRH Squad 

Pat Cummins (C), Abdul Samad, Abhishek Sharma, Aiden Markram, Marco Jansen, Rahul Tripathi, Washington Sundar, Glenn Phillips, Sanvir Singh, Heinrich Klaasen, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Mayank Agarwal, T. Natarajan, Anmolpreet Singh, Mayank Markande, Upendra Singh Yadav, Umran Malik, Nitish Kumar Reddy, Fazalhaq Farooqi, Shahbaz Ahmed, Travis Head, Wanindu Hasaranga, Jaydev Unadkat, Akash Singh, Jhathavedh Subramanyan

KKR vs SRH Key Player Battles

Pat Cummins vs Shreyas Iyer 

Shreyas Iyer’s problems against the short ball is now a very well-known commodity in international cricket. Bowlers have exposed that weakness of his time and again and Cummins too is wary of that. 

Travis Head vs Mitchell Starc 

Two Australian teammates very good mates will go head to head at each other. This Australian rivalry will be surely one to watch out for. 

Rahul Tripathi vs KKR spinners 

Having played for KKR in IPL 2020 and 2021, Rahul Tripathi has played the likes of Narine and Varun Chakravarthy at the nets. He did play a knock of note against KKR last year too. How he plays the KKR spinners will be an interesting observation. 

KKR vs SRH Weather and Pitch

The weather conditions will be pleasant for the KKR vs SRH match on March 23 at the Eden Gardens. The temperatures will be around 27 degrees in the evening with a good amount of humidity. There is no threat of rain as per trusted weather channels like Accuweather and Weather.com. 

Speaking about the pitch, Gautam Gambhir’s arrival certainly signifies that KKR might want to go back to the spinning tracks that made some successful at home under Gambhir’s captaincy. A score of around 160-170 might be an even contest. 

Conclusion

KKR leads the head-to-head count 16-9 in 25 matches against SRH. At home in Kolkata, they have won six out of the nine games and will look to add to that tally on Saturday.

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