IPL 2018: KKR field just three foreign players in their lineup in Qualifier 2

The IPL teams usually consist of a large pool of players. The franchises have the luxury of trying several players at the start of the tournament and then they find the best combination after a few matches. Teams like to maintain a settled lineup heading into the playoffs as captains do not wish to tinker with the winning combination during the crunch games.

The Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) looked a bit off in the initial stages of the tournament but an inspirational late surge saw them taking the third spot in the points table at the end of league stages. Dinesh Karthik hasn’t tinkered much with his playing XI and has looked pretty decent with his playing combinations. Interestingly, KKR opted to go into the second Qualifier against the Sunrisers Hyderabad with just three overseas players.

Interesting combination

With this move, KKR became the first team to play a playoff match with three foreign players. Javon Searles was left out and Shivam Mavi was chosen to feature in the pressure game. Chris Lynn, Sunil Narine and Andre Russell were the three overseas players for Kolkata Knight Riders.

On the other hand, SRH made three changes with Deepak Hooda, Wriddhiman Saha and Khaleel Ahmed replacing Manish Pandey, Sreevats Goswami and Sandeep Sharma. “We will bowl first. We would like to chase down the target. We fought hard (against RR), we showed good character, we came back hard and we finally won the game. It’s always the case in a must-win game, two good teams are out to play today.” Dinesh Karthik said at the toss.

KKR are chasing 175 as a place in the final beckons. But they will have to trump the best bowling line-up of the tournament to gun down those many runs.

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