Head-to-Head
Total Played: 27 | Mumbai Indians Won: 21 | Kolkata Knight Riders Won: 6
Probable XIs
KKR: Nitish Rana, Shubman Gill, Rahul Tripathi, Eoin Morgan (C), Dinesh Karthik (WK), Andre Russell, Shakib Al Hasan, Pat Cummins, Prasidh Krishna, Harbhajan Singh and Varun Chakravarthy
Mumbai Indians: Rohit Sharma (C), Quinton de Kock (WK), Suryakumar Yadav, Ishan Kishan, Kieron Pollard, Hardik Pandya, Krunal Pandya, Rahul Chahar, Marco Jansen, Trent Boult and Jasprit Bumrah.
Squads:
KKR: Shubman Gill, Nitish Rana, Tim Seifert (wicketkeeper), Rahul Tripathi, Rinku Singh, Dinesh Karthik (wicketkeeper), Eoin Morgan (captain), Andre Russell, Sunil Narine, Varun CV, Kuldeep Yadav, Pat Cummins, Lockie Ferguson, Kamlesh Nagarkoti, Shivam Mavi, Sandeep Warrier, Prasidh Krishna, Shakib Al Hasan, Sheldon Jackson, Vaibhav Arora, Karun Nair, Harbhajan Singh, Ben Cutting, Venkatesh Iyer, Pawan Negi.
Mumbai Indians: Rohit Sharma (captain), Adam Milne, Aditya Tare, Anmolpreet Singh, Anukul Roy, Arjun Tendulkar, Chris Lynn, Dhawal Kulkarni, Hardik Pandya, Ishan Kishan (wicketkeeper), James Neesham, Jasprit Bumrah, Jayant Yadav, Kieron Pollard, Krunal Pandya, Marco Jansen, Mohsin Khan, Nathan Coulter-Nile, Piyush Chawla, Quinton De Kock (wicketkeeper), Rahul Chahar, Saurabh Tiwary, Suryakumar Yadav, Trent Boult, Yudhvir Singh.
Preview:
Playing Kolkata Knight Riders presents perfect opportunity for the Mumbai Indians to bounce back after the defeat off the last ball against the Royal Challengers Bangalore.
Having won 21 of the 27 completed matches, including nine in the last ten, the defending champions are without a doubt favourites to win the contest.
They are also bolstered by the return of their regular opener Quinton de Kock, who had to sit out of the tournament opener as he was serving a mandatory quarantine on arrival from South Africa.
MI's power-packed middle and lower batting unit comprising the Pandya brothers and Kieron Pollard among others batting are too good to fail as a whole twice in a row.
Containing them will be a big challenge for Kolkata Knight Riders who on Sunday scored a close but impressive win over Sunrisers Hyderabad.
But this Knight Riders team, playing under a World Champion captain showed in their opening-game win just how they will be playing this season. Their uncapped Indian players Nitish Rana and Rahul Tripathi are beaming with confidence after hitting half-centuries. With the ball, Pat Cummins and Shakib Al Hasan provide variations and captain Morgan certainly showed in the first match his ability to use bowling options smartly.
All in all, the match promises a cracker of a game between two teams with different styles.