The Orange Army, Sunrisers Hyderabad led by David Warner will take on Eoin Morgan’s Kolkata Knight Riders in the third game of the Vivo IPL 2021 at MA Chidambaram Stadium, Chennai on Sunday 11th April, 7:30 pm IST.
IPL 2021 Match 3 SRH vs KKR: Preview
Sunrisers Hyderabad are one of the most consistent sides in the Indian Premier League. They are not rated as highly as the other heavyweights like Mumbai Indians and Chennai Super Kings but they are the only team to have qualified for the playoffs in the last five editions of the IPL which included a title victory in the year 2016. They have a good mix-up of young and experienced players which is the reason for their good performances. The contribution of the management and support staff adds cherry on top for them.
SRH have believed in retaining their core players like David Warner, Kane Williamson, Rashid Khan, Bhuvneshwar Kumar and few others which has worked wonders for them. In Spite of the unavailability of Warner in 2018, they managed to make it to the finals. This shows how well settled they are as a team. The only concern they had over the past few seasons was a weak lower order. They were highly dependent on their top 4 to perform. The addition of Kedar Jadhav and the likes of Jason Holder and Abdul Samad may fill that void.
SRH roped in Mujeeb Ur Rahman and Kedar Jadhav during the auction while Jason Roy was added to the squad as a replacement for Mitchell Marsh. It would be hectic for the SRH management to select their four overseas players. To maintain the balance in the squad, Bairstow is most likely to make way for Holder as the latter provides depth in the batting as well as contributes with the ball. The other three overseas players Warner, Williamson and Rashid seem to be irreplaceable.
The batting attack is led by Warner and Williamson accompanied by Pandey and Saha. On the other hand, Bhuvneshwar Kumar is the leader of the bowling unit alongside Rashid Khan. T Natarajan, Sandeep Sharma and Jason Holder will partner them with Jadhav and Samad too chipping in a few overs.
Two time Champions Kolkata Knight Riders on the other hand, had a disappointing season last time around. They were considered to be the top contender to lift the IPL trophy instead they couldn’t even manage to qualify for the playoffs. They totally underachieved by what was expected of them seeing the likes of Morgan, Russell, Narine, Karthik, Gill and many others in the team.
On paper, they looked like a solid squad and had all the bases covered, but lack of consistency and planning in the management were the reasons for their failure. The Exit of Dinesh Karthik as KKR’s skipper and inability for Andre Russell and Sunil Narine to perform were the added worries for the Knight Riders. The addition of Shakib Al Hasan should be of great advantage for them as we all know how good an all-round performer Shakib is.
Kolkata’s primary objective would be to settle their batting order and define a style of play. With Morgan as the leader of the herd, it is expected that Kolkata will try to apply England’s style of attacking cricket. They do have a lot of back up options this season if any of their go through players underperforms. They roped in Shakib Al Hasan, Sheldon Jackson, Karun Nair, Harbhajan Singh, Ben Cutting and Pawan Negi in the IPL auctions.
The batting order is led by the young Shubman Gill and skipper Morgan. Karthik, Rana and Tripathi will provide additional support followed by Andre Russell. Pat Cummins would be the incharge of bowling front alongside the latest Indian debutant Prasidh Krishna. Shivam Mavi, Varun Chakravarthy and Sunil Narine will be the other bowling options. Russell too might bowl some overs owing to his fitness.
IPL 2021 Match 3 SRH vs KKR: Match Details
- Match: Sunrisers Hyderabad vs Kolkata Knight Riders, IPL 2021 Match 3
- Date and Time: 11th April, 7:30 pm IST
- Venue: MA Chidambaram Stadium, Chennai
- The match between Sunrisers Hyderabad vs Kolkata Knight Riders will be streamed live on the Star Sports Network and Disney+ Hotstar VIP.
Weather Report
The weather at MA Chidambaram Stadium is expected to be humid. The temperature might hover around 32 Degrees Celsius. We didn’t see a lot of dew in the opening match of the IPL between Mumbai Indians and Royal Challengers Bangalore which was played here.
Pitch Report
The pitch at MA Chidambaram Stadium is a slow and sluggish wicket. In the opening match we saw that the ball was sticking onto the surface making it difficult for the batters to score. Slow ballers would enjoy bowling here.
IPL 2021 Match 3 SRH vs KKR: Predicted Playing XI
Both teams chose to retain a big chunk of their players at the auction and hence, their sides should not be too different from those fielded last year.
Sunrisers Hyderabad
- David Warner
- Wriddhiman Saha
- Manish Pandey
- Kane Williamson
- Kedar Jadhav
- Abdul Samad
- Jason Holder
- Rashid Khan
- Bhuvneshwar Kumar
- T Natarajan
- Sandeep Sharma
Kolkata Knight Riders
- Shubman Gill
- Rahul Tripathi
- Nitish Rana
- Eoin Morgan
- Dinesh Karthik
- Andre Russell
- Sunil Narine
- Pat Cummins
- Shivam Mavi
- Varun Chakravarthy
- Prasidh Krishna
IPL 2021: SRH vs KKR: Head-to-head and Match Prediction
Head to Head ( Last 5 matches)
- Match tied (KKR won the super over)
- KKR won by 7 wickets.
- SRH won by 9 wickets.
- KKR won by 6 wickets.
- SRH won by 14 runs.
Match Prediction: Sunrisers Hyderabad are expected to win this match as they look more settled and well grouped as a team. Their players are in form too and have had a decent amount of game time before IPL.
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