Kolkata Knight Riders are flying high and after their dominating display against Rising Pune Supergiant, they look set to make the playoffs with utmost ease to say the least. On the other hand, Delhi Daredevils will look to get back to winning ways as they lie at the bottom of the table with four points from six matches so far.

But, captain Zaheer Khan shouldn’t start panicking just yet. They still have a very good chance of making the playoffs if they can start winning games.

At Eden Gardens, two teams with probably the best bowling attacks in the league will face each other. Khan and his supporting cast will look to stop Gautam Gambhir and his men from notching up their seventh win in nine games. The Delhi Daredevils have had a five-day break since their defeat to Mumbai Indians and will be raring to go against KKR, who have a series of upcoming games.

However, rain could play spoilsport according to weather reports. A wash-out would give each team one point. For Delhi that is not good news given they have to literally win every match after that.

Time: 4 pm

Venue: Eden Gardens, Kolkata

TV: Sony Max, Sony Six, Sony ESPN and their HD channels

Head-to-head

Played: 18

Kolkata Knight Riders: 11

Delhi Daredevils: 7

At Eden Gardens: 6

Kolkata Knight Riders: 5

Delhi Daredevils: 1

Kolkata Knight Riders

  • The Kolkata Knight Riders have the best overall scoring rate among all teams in the ongoing IPL – 9.25.      
  • Sunil Narine has scored 89% of his runs this season in boundaries. He has hit 122 runs of his total 137 runs in fours and sixes. 

Kolkata Knight Riders squad: Gautam Gambhir (captain), Darren Bravo, Trent Boult, Piyush Chawla, Nathan Coulter Nile, Colin De Grandhomme, Rishi Dhawan, Sayan Ghosh, Shaikb-Al-Hasan, Sheldon Jackson, Ishank Jaggi, Kuldeep Yadav, Chris Woakes, Chris Lynn, Sunil Narine, Manish Pandey, Yusuf Pathan, Ankit Rajpoot, Suryakumar Yadav, Robin Uthappa and Umesh Yadav.

Delhi Daredevils

  • The Delhi Daredevils batsmen have struck the fewest sixes among all teams this season – 32.
  • Rishabh Pant hits a boundary nearly every two dot balls he faces in the IPL. He has hit 44 boundaries – 28 fours and 16 sixes – and has faced 90 dot balls.

Delhi Daredevils squad: Zaheer Khan (capt), Mohammad Shami, Shahbaz Nadeem, Jayant Yadav, Amit Mishra, Shreyas Iyer, Sanju Samson, Karun Nair, Rishabh Pant, CV Milind, Khaleel Ahmed, Pratyush Singh, Murugan Ashwin, Aditya Tare, Shashank Singh, Ankit Bawane, Navdeep Saini, Corey Anderson, Angelo Mathews, Pat Cummins, Kagiso Rabada, Chris Morris, Carlos Brathwaite, Sam Billings.

“We should win close games. If you see the points table, we have a good net run rate. When a team is doing well, the net run rate is high. We need a winning momentum. In the next nine days, we are playing five matches. It is a very important phase. If we can string a winning momentum in this phase, things will change by May 6,” said Zaheer Khan, Delhi Daredevils captain.