Defending champions Sunrisers Hyderabad will look to work past their injury troubles and fend off the challenge of Kolkata Knight Riders, who themselves are hoping to break an agonising sequence of debacles in the IPL Eliminator on Wednesday.

The winner of the contest will proceed to face Mumbai Indians on May 19 in the second Qualifier, which will decide the second entrant of the final.

Sunrisers will be hoping the league’s current top wicket-taker, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, maintains his form. His pace partner, Ashish Nehra, was ruled out of the rest of the season through injury and that has raised the weight of expectations on Bhuvneshwar

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There is still doubt over the availability of Yuvraj Singh, who is recovering from a finger injury. It is likely that the southpaw will return for the game, but might not be a 100% fit.

KKR have their own problems of form to contend with. It would take a significant turnaround to reach the second qualifier after they lost four out of seven matches in the latter half of the season. They will be hoping for a revival and avoid a repeat of last year’s Eliminator, where they had lost to the same opponents.

Time: 8 pm
Venue: Chinnaswamy Stadium, Bengaluru
TV: Sony Max, Sony Six, Sony ESPN and their HD Channels
Head-to-head since 2016:
Played: 5
SRH: 2
KKR: 3

Sunrisers Hyderabad

  • Sunrisers Hyderabad have a dismal record playing away from home this season. They have so far won only two from seven away games with one wash out.
  • David Warner and Shikhar Dhawan have opened the innings for Sunrisers in all their 13 matches. No other team has played the same openers through the season.

“KKR’s form over the past two weeks is not going to be relevant tomorrow. They have got a lot of experience in that team. There are lot of players who know how to win play-offs. So, we make sure that we focus on us and play with the same mindset we have been playing so far.”
- Sunrisers Hyderabad coach Tom Moody

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Squad: David Warner (c), Shikhar Dhawan, Kane Williamson, Ricky Bhui, Yuvraj Singh, Moises Henriques, Chris Jordan, Abhimanyu Mithun, Barinder Singh Sran, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Ashish Nehra, Naman Ojha (wicketkeeper), Eklavya Dwivedi (wicketkeeper), Tanmay Agarwal, Mustafizur Rahman, Siddarth Kaul, Ben Laughlin, Mohammad Nabi, Mohammed Siraj, Rashid Khan, Pravin Tambe, Ben Cutting, Bipul Sharma, Vijay Shankar Deepak Hooda.

Kolkata Knight Riders

  • KKR’s top-order batsmen have batted exceptionally so far in this edition of the IPL. The have scored at a rate of 58.74 runs per game in the powerplay.
  • Of the 11 games played between the two sides in the IPL, KKR have emerged victorious in seven. They, however, were lost out in the Eliminator in the last edition against the same opposition.

“We have to pull up our socks. If we have to win the tournament we will have to bat sensibly.”
- KKR captain Gautam Gambhir.

Squad: Gautam Gambhir (c), Darren Bravo, Yusuf Pathan, Sunil Narine, Robin Uthappa (wk), Umesh Yadav, Suryakumar Yadav, Ankit Rajpoot, Trent Boult, Piyush Chawla, Nathan Coulter Nile, Colin De Grandhomme, Rishi Dhawan, Sayan Ghosh, Shakib Al Hasan, Sheldon Jackson, Ishank Jaggi, Kuldeep Yadav, Chris Woakes, Chris Lynn, Manish Pandey.