Kolkata eye top-two finish

Gambhir's men take on inconsistent Punjab

Having sealed their play-offs spot after a resounding victory in their previous match, Kolkata Knight Riders would be aiming for a top-two finish when they take on an inconsistent Kings XI Punjab here on Tuesday.

KKR bounced back from their back-to-back defeats when they registered an easy six-wicket win over Royal Challengers Bangalore in Bengaluru on Sunday.

The Gautam Gambhir-led side are now at second spot in the league table with 16 points from 12 matches with the help of eight wins and they would look to consolidate their position with a win over Punjab, who suffered a six-wicket defeat to Gujarat Lions on Sunday.

KKR showed why they are one of the strongest teams in this IPL when they inflicted a humiliating defeat on the bottom placed RCB.

Chasing a modest 159 for victory, KKR achieved the target with 29 balls to spare on the back of Sunil Narine’s (54 off 17 balls) record joint fastest IPL fifty — from 15 balls — and an equally aggressive knock from Chris Lynn (50 off 22 balls).

When Narine has got going, Gambhir and Robin Uthappa have capitalised on the solid starts given by the West Indian to power KKR.

Narine has come out as an opener in nine matches out of KKR’s 12 so far and he has scored 194 runs.
Umesh Yadav, Chris Woakes and Narine will be the main bowlers on whom KKR will mainly bank upon with Ankit Rajpoot and Piyush Chawla also having the ability to support them.

Glenn Maxwell-led KXIP, on the other hand, have a slender chance to make it to the play-offs as they have only five wins from 11 matches and are placed at the fifth spot with 10 points. They now need to win all their remaining three matches if they have to have any chance of making it to the knock-out stage.

Their chances of a play-offs berth were severely dented by their six-wicket defeat at the hands of Gujarat Lions on Sunday.

The home side were on a roll with back-to-back wins, but the defeat at the hands of Gujarat caused a serious dent to their play-offs hopes.

Inconsistency has been KXIP’s problem in this edition and they again failed to rise to the occasion against Lions in a match which they should have won. 

KXIP’s South African import Hashim Amla has been their main batsmen with 400-plus runs, which includes two centuries — against Mumbai Indians and Gujarat.

Besides Amla and Maxwell, the likes of Martin Guptill, Shaun Marsh, Manan Vohra, Wriddhiman Saha and Axar Patel have to fire in unison.
PTI