Kolkata
Knight Riders go head-to-head with Sunrisers Hyderabad who sit at the bottom of
the table. The team led by England skipper Eoin Morgan are fighting for a
qualification spot and presently sit on level points with Punjab Kings, Mumbai
Indians and Rajasthan Royals. Shakib Al Hasan is back in the line up for the
Knight Riders.

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Kane
Williamson, the captain of Sunrisers Hyderabad won the toss and chose to bat
first. He said, “We’re going
to have a bat. It looks like a reasonable surface and it won’t change much so
we’ll make use of it with the bat. It’s an unfortunate position to be in but
there’s quite a bit to gain with growth of players, in difficult conditions,
especially against a side like Kolkata.”

Williamson added, “Umran
Malik comes in for Sandeep Sharma just to improve the balance of the side. He’s
an exciting fast bowling talent.”

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While Morgan is up for
the challenge and hopes to cement the team’s place in the top four. He said, “We’re
happy to bowl first. It’s a similar wicket to the other night, the ball swung
around a little bit, there’s a shorter side on one side, but yeah we are happy
chasing. Being an experienced player, the worse you form gets, the closer you
actually get to a good score, so I’m hoping to turn things around and
contribute to a win.”

The captain who has
struggled to get in form throughout the season added, “I think we did a good
job in the second phase, gathering momentum and playing some really good
cricket. I think if we get past the challenge that SRH pose today we’ll be in
an even better space.”

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Talking about the team selection for the match he said, “Tim Seifert goes out and Shakib comes in to improve the
balance on the all-round front since he contributes with the ball as well. We
probably fell short with the ball the other night and Shakib fills that void.”

The match is taking place at the Dubai International Stadium.

KKR’s playing 11 for the match is –

Shubman Gill, Venkatesh Iyer, Nitish Rana, Rahul Tripathi, Eoin Morgan, Dinesh Karthik(wk), Tim Seifert, Sunil Narine, Shivam Mavi, Tim Southee, Varun Chakravarthy

SRH’s playing 11 includes – 

Jason Roy, Wriddhiman Saha(wk), Kane Williamson, Priyam Garg, Abhishek Sharma, Jason Holder, Abdul Samad, Rashid Khan, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Sandeep Sharma, Siddarth Kaul

The omission of Shakib Al Hasan was a topic which was often picked for discussion by the experts and commentators. Some even went on to say that the face of Bangladesh cricket should be included in the playing eleven over KKR’s skipper Eoin Morgan. He was once considered the best all rounder in the game and is still one of the best players for the short format.