🏏IPL 2023: Kolkata Knight Riders vs Gujarat Titans, 39th Match 🏏

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🏏IPL 2023: Kolkata Knight Riders vs Gujarat Titans, 39th Match 🏏

Tag and Logo credit: Sevenstreaks

Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) will square off against Gujarat Titans (GT) in the 39th match of the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2023 at the iconic Eden Gardens Stadium in Kolkata today.

Notably, KKR and GT have met each other once in the IPL 2023, where Kolkata emerged victorious in a last-over thriller by three wickets.

Talking about their previous games, KKR defeated Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) in their last match, whereas Gujarat registered a win over Mumbai Indians.

Jason Roy was the standout performer for the Kolkata-based team in their encounter against RCB, as the right-handed batter smashed a brilliant 56 runs from just 29 balls.

Meanwhile, among bowlers, Varun Chakravarthy bagged three scalps for KKR. At the same time, Shubman Gill shined for GT in their clash against MI, hammering a quickfire 56 runs off 34 deliveries.

Noor Ahmad picked three wickets for Gujarat in the contest.

GT currently are on the second spot in the IPL 2023 points tally and will eye the top position when they meet KKR on Saturday. On the other hand, KKR sits at seventh place and will look to move up in the points' table by winning against Gujarat.

KKR and GT top the charts currently for most wickets among wrist spinners in this IPL and the clash at the Eden Gardens will be a battle of one-upmanship between the spinners of both sides.

For the Titans, Shubman Gill tops their batting chart, while there have been good performances from the rest of the batters too in what has been a collective effort so far.

But in comparison to the KKR's batters, GT have been lagging slightly in terms of strike rates and they'll be hoping that the 2023 trends at the Eden Gardens work in their favour and provide them a boost.

KKR VS GT -- IPL 2023: A match between equals!

PS: Don't forget to send your predictions for Match 39

Deadline for toss prediction: 3:00PM IST

Deadline for rest of the predictions: 3:30PM IST

Make sure you hit "Submit prediction" button for initial predictions and "Update Prediction" button after making any subsequent changes to register your predictions.

Probable XIs:

Kolkata Knight Riders: N Jagadeesan (wk), Jason Roy, Venkatesh Iyer, Nitish Rana (c), Rinku Singh, Andre Russell, Sunil Narine, David Wiese, Vaibhav Arora, Umesh Yadav, Varun Chakaravarthy

Gujarat Titans: Wriddhiman Saha (wk), Shubman Gill, Hardik Pandya (c), Vijay Shankar, David Miller, Abhinav Manohar, Rahul Tewatia, Rashid Khan, Mohammed Shami, Noor Ahmad, Mohit Sharma

Head-to-head record

Played: 02 | KKR won: 01 | GT won: 01 | No result: 0

Match Prediction:

Case 1:

• KKR wins the toss and bowls first
• Powerplay score: 55-60
• GT total: 185-195

Case 2:

• GT wins the toss and bowls first
• Powerplay score: 50-55
• KKR total: 180-190

Team bowling first to win the contest.

Pitch report:

The track at Eden Gardens generally favours the batters. However, it will also assist the spinners as the game progresses. Overall, a high-scoring match is expected to take place at the venue.

As many as four 200-plus totals have been scored in only six innings at the Eden Gardens so far, with 222 being the average first innings total.

The team batting first has won each of the three matches but those were all evening games and it remains to be seen if the conditions differ for the afternoon match.

Shardul could prove an effective option against Shubman Gill, having dismissed him twice and conceding only 36 runs off 32 balls against the GT opener.

Narine has dismissed Wriddhiman Saha four times and could be used early by KKR when they are bowling.

Thanks for the tag Madhu.🤗

May the best team win.👍🏼

Cheers..

Thank you for the tag...🙂

Thanks for the tag and thread, Madz!❤️

The team winning the toss might opt to bat first. In the previous game at Eden Gardens Stadium, KKR lost while batting second against CSK.

Moreover, Kolkata Knight Riders also won their previous game by batting first. Hence, they will opt to bat first this time.

Gujarat Titans won their previous game while batting first.

Hence, they might look to bat first once again. Also, they must be aware of the fact that teams batting first have won more games at Eden Gardens in IPL 2023.

Predicted Scores For KKR vs GT Match

Team 1st Innings 2nd Innings
KKR 200-220 180-200
GT 200-220 180-200

The Hardik Pandya-led team are likely to stick to the same combination that won them the last two matches.

Team news--

Kolkata Knight Riders

Shardul Thakur bowled an extended spell and also batted during practice before the game in Bengaluru but did not play the game as he was still recovering from a niggle. But Cricbuzz has learnt that he is 'ready and available now', and is likely to replace Vaibhav Arora unless KKR opt to leave out Umesh who has been bagged only one wicket and has an economy of close to 10.

Tactics & match-ups: Shardul could prove an effective option against Shubman Gill, having dismissed him twice and conceding only 36 runs off 32 balls against the GT opener. Narine has dismissed Wriddhiman Saha four times and could be used early by KKR when they are bowling.

Gujarat Titans

The Hardik Pandya-led team are likely to stick to the same combination that won them the last two matches.

Tactics & match-ups: Andre Russell averages only 3.67 against Rashid Khan, with a strike rate of 61.11, and has been dismissed three times by the Afghanistan legspinner. GT are likely to focus on this match-up and turn to Pandya who has dismissed Nitish Rana twice.

The Knight Riders have won three out of eight games this season and are placed in the 7th place in the points table. One of their three wins came against the Titans by three wickets. They chased down the target of 205 runs on the final delivery of their innings. Rinku Singh hit five sixes in the last over to guide the team to this victory. Knight Riders defeated the Royal Challengers Bangalore in their previous outing by 21 runs. KKR had posted a total of 200 runs for the loss of five wickets and restricted the Royal Challengers to 179 runs.

Did you know?

- Hardik Pandya has scored 366 runs in 11 innings against KKR, averaging 61 with a strike rate of 173.46. He has also picked up 11 wickets against them at an average of 14.45 with an economy of 6.91.

- Sunil Narine has bowled 1442 dot deliveries in the IPL. He needs 11 more to overtake R Ashwin who is currently in the second spot. Bhuvneshwar Kumar (1473) has bowled the most number of dot balls.

What they said

"Absolutely not (concerned). He's an absolute superstar" - James Foster, KKR Assistant Coach, on Andre Russell's numbers