Tonight’s game between Sunrisers Hyderabad and Mumbai Indians is expected to be a tense affair. Both teams are equally matched in every way. Sunrisers Hyderabad have done well so far, having won both their games.
KKR, on the other hand, have won one, lost one. They lost the game against CSK mainly because of one bowler – Vinay Kumar. Kumar bowled the first over and the last over for KKR, going for 18 runs in the first and 17 runs in the last, losing the game for them.
Vinay Kumar is a perfect example of completely mediocre cricketers who have gone on to play from one franchise to another over the years, making millions in the process. Another example we can think of is Stuart Binny.
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Kumar, like Binny, has no pace, no swing, cannot take wickets and cannot stop runs. One can’t understand how he still manages to win contracts from one franchise to another. This is just a joke! Sorry, but we have to be honest here.
KKR have a very good team apart from that, and we expect Dinesh Karthik, who is a very smart cricketer, to make amends immediately by replacing Vinay Kumar with either Shivam Mavi or Kamlesh Nagarkoti, the young under 19 players, who have something that Kumar lacks – serious pace.
KKR are lucky to have two of the most dangerous players in T20 cricket in their team – Sunil Narine and Andre Russell. They are both destructive on their day and can take apart any team, either by batting or bowling.
Andre, we feel, is the better of the two, and he is perhaps the world’s most valuable T20 player right now. One cannot think of any T20 cricketer who gives you the kind of complete package that Russell does. The man bowls fast like Dale Steyn, bats like Viv Richards and fields like Jonty Rhodes. How good is he? He just needs to watch his fitness, which is a major concern.
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We expect a great game tomorrow. Sunrisers Hyderabad have a very good bowling attack with very good second string medium pace bowlers in Siddarth Kaul and Sandeep Sharma. Neither of the two are fast, but they get the job done. What more can you ask for?
The Teams
Kolkata Knight Riders: 1 Chris Lynn, 2 Sunil Narine, 3 Robin Uthappa, 4 Nitish Rana, 5 Dinesh Karthik (capt, wk), 6 Rinku Singh/Shubman Gill, 7 Andre Russell, 8 Mitchell Johnson, 9 Piyush Chawla, 10 Kuldeep Yadav, 11 Shivam Mavi/Kamlesh Nagarkoti
Sunrisers Hyderabad: 1 Shikhar Dhawan, 2 Wriddhiman Saha (wk), 3 Kane Williamson (capt), 4 Manish Pandey, 5 Yusuf Pathan, 6 Shakib Al Hasan, 7 Deepak Hooda, 8 Rashid Khan, 9 Siddarth Kaul, 10 Sandeep Sharma/Bhuvneshwar Kumar, 11 Billy Stanlake
Watch Kolkata Knight Riders taken on Sunrisers Hyderabad tonight at 8 pm on Star Sports!
