IPL 2021: Strongest Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) Playing XI Against Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB)

Kolkata Knight Riders’ form in this season of the Indian Premier League is a bit of a curious case. They have a good squad within their mix. They have some talented youngsters and some experienced pros. On top of that, they have a World Cup-winning captain and Brendon McCullum as their head coach. Yet, it seems quite surprising that at the halfway stage this season, they have won only two matches. 

As they begin their second half of the league stages, they will be looking to take control of things. KKR will be facing Royal Challengers Bangalore in Ahmedabad on May 3.

Here is the predicted XI for Kolkata Knight Riders against Royal Challengers Bangalore. 

Openers (Shubman Gill and Nitish Rana)

A key reason why Kolkata has not done quite well during this tournament so far is the way how their openers have gone about their business. Both the batsmen have failed to get a move on during the power play overs.

For instance, in the previous match as well, Kolkata lost Nitish Rana for a score of 15 runs from 12 balls. The stand yielded 25 runs from 22 balls. Shubman Gill got going, but his 43 runs came from 38 balls, which failed to give good momentum to the KKR innings. 

Middle-order (Rahul Tripathi, Eoin Morgan, and Dinesh Karthik)

The middle-order of the Kolkata Knight Riders disappointed once again during their previous match against Delhi. Eoin Morgan got a duck while Tripathi batting at no. 3, made only 19 runs. Karthik scored 14 batting lower than Andre Russell. It is quite crucial that these three players turn up and get some runs for their franchise. Maybe a bit of shuffle in the order can help them but it is safe to say that the entire middle order of the Kolkata team is in jeopardy at this moment.

All-rounders (Sunil Narine and Andre Russell) 

There was a time when Kolkata Knight Riders revolutionized their power play batting by bringing in Sunil Narine as an opener. However, in this season so far, the left-handed batsman has scored just 10 runs in four innings, including two successive ducks in the last two matches. There is a case of misusing his batting prowess.

Captain Eoin Morgan can be slightly blamed for the way he has used Andre Russell as well. Under Karthik, Russell was the main batter in this team, which made the team promote him to positions where he can have the maximum impact on the match. At this point, KKR have decided to use him at no. 6 or no. 7, which does bring the memories of the Dre Russ of the past seasons, but only in flashes. 

Bowlers (Pat Cummins, Varun Chakravarthy, Shivam Mavi, Prasidh Krishna)

There is nothing much that can be said to the KKR bowlers. They don’t seem to lack the capabilities to take wickets or bowl-tight spells. But looking at how they have done so far, it is absolutely clear that there are some holes in this line-up. Pat Cummins has bowled well but failed to emerge as a leader of this attack. 

There is a sense of lack of complimenting each other as a bowling unit in this KKR team. This has made them lose rhythm in between the match. Everyone seems to be doing their job not poorly, but the lack of stand-out performance is hurting them now.

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