Head to Head of teams

KKR 14 – 8 KXIP. The two teams will play each other for the first time in Indore. KKR have a 7-5 winning record away from home against KXIP.

IPL 2018 trends

KKR and KXIP are two of the best batting sides in the first six overs in IPL 2018 with run rates of 8.88 and 8.85 respectively.

These two sides have hit the most boundaries (4s+6s) in the first six overs – 100 by KKR and 91 by KXIP respectively.

On the other, their bowling exploits have been vastly different in the first six overs – KXIP has taken joint most wickets in this phase (18) while KKR the least (9). KXIP average 25.61 while KKR average 67.44.

KKR pacers have the poorest numbers in IPL 2018 – average of 42.56, SR of 25.00 and ER of 10.21 (18 wickets). On the other hand, spinners have accounted for 36 wickets at 26.81 (SR 19.58 & ER 8.21).

What they said

“He (Andrew Tye) has played for various franchises and has done well everywhere. Our strength has been our bowling and we are very comfortable with the amount of effort that’s been put up by them” – Brad Hodge, when asked to assess the strength of Kings XI Punjab

“Our last two games haven’t been ideal. We have made it a lot tougher on ourselves. If we win three of our remaining games, that gives us a chance” – Simon Katich was honest in his assessment of KKR’s up and down season.

Likely XIs

Kings XI Punjab: 1 KL Rahul (wk), 2 Chris Gayle, 3 Karun Nair, 4 Akshdeep Nath, 5 Manoj Tiwary, 6 Marcus Stoinis, 7 Axar Patel, 8 R Ashwin (capt), 9 AJ Tye, 10 Mohit Sharma, 11 Mujeeb Ur Rahman

Kolkata Knight Riders: 1 Sunil Narine, 2 Chris Lynn, 3 Robin Uthappa, 4 Nitish Rana, 5 Dinesh Karthik (capt & wk), 6 Andre Russell, 7 Rinku Singh/Shubman Gill, 8 Tom Curran, 9 Piyush Chawla, 10 Kuldeep Yadav, 11 Prasidh Krishna/Shivam Mavi

TOSS: Kings XI Punjab
MATCH:  Kolkata Knight Riders