The runners-up of last year Sunrisers Hyderabad will play mighty Kolkata Knight Riders in their opening game in this edition of IPL at Eden Gardens tomorrow (4 pm). With David Warner back in the squad, Sunrisers is hoping for a great beginning to the tournament. With Shikar Dhawan picked by Delhi, all eyes would be on Warner and his exploits with the bat.
KKR led by bubbly Dinesh Karthik has Carlos Braithwaite, bought for a high price of Rs 5 crore mostly as a cover for Andre Russell, who has been prone to injury in the recent times. They bought as many as 4 pacers out of which 3 are overseas players. They bought only one overseas batsman in the form of Joe Denly which shows that they had confidence in the players that they had retained.
A lot is expected from Sunil Narine, who not just contributes with ball but also strike big when he was promoted to open the innings in the previous editions of the IPL. Add to it experienced Piyush Chawal and Kuldeep Yadav. Their spin trio looks solid. As far as batting is concerned, they have Cris Lynn, Shubman Gill, and Robin Uthappa besides Dinesh Karthik.
Sunrisers has a destructive batsmen in David Warner and Johnny Bairstow.
Add to it Kane Williamson, Manish Pandey and Vijay Shankar, they look solid on paper. Their bowlers Shakib Al Hasan, Mohammad Nabi, Rashid Khan, Bhuvneshwar Kumar showed that they can defend even a small. Besides them, they have an abundance of Indian bowlers who can play the perfect support to the strike bowlers. Kane Williamson is battling an injury and players like Bairstow, Shakib Al Hasan, Mohammad Nabi and Rashid Khan might join the squad later due to international commitments. Much is expected from Yusuf Pathan tomorrow.