The reigning champs Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) find themselves in a tricky spot with two losses in the first three matches with the batting not quite clicking, apart from the one game where Quinton de Kock steered their ship. The build-up ahead of KKR’s second home game of the ongoing season of the IPL had more spotlight on the potential pitch conditions rather than the form of some of the players or batting failure. The spotlight on pitch was also because KKR are facing a certain side whose textbook doesn’t have a word called ‘caution’ or ‘safety’.

But since it is a dry pitch as the leaked pictures revealed, the spinners will get a little more assistance and KKR could give a serious look at bringing someone like Moeen Ali into the side, especially considering the left-handedness of the SRH’s top three. Moeen did well on the slow wicket in Guwahati in Sunil Narine’s absence and with Spencer Johnson not giving much to the KKR line-up in terms of results, Moeen along with Varun Chakravarthy would make for a potent spin attack to counter the Orange aggression.

Similarly, Sunrisers Hyderabad would also be tempted to pair someone like Adam Zampa with the young UP spinner Zeeshan Ansari, who had a breakout game against the Delhi Capitals. Sunrisers might also adjust their balance by having a Wiaan Mulder or Kamindu Mendis in place of Abhinav Manohar and then have both Ansari and Jaydev Unadkat in the line-up, as the left-arm pacer could be useful with his change of pace and cutters on a dry wicket.

However, it is unlikely that SRH will make so many changes, especially with calm heads like Pat Cummins and Daniel Vettori at the helm. The dryness of the surface will warrant a couple of tactical changes but whether SRH adapt the horses for courses approach or not, would be interesting to see. Since both teams are coming off losses, both of them will be hurt and keen to turn the tables for different reasons and hence, there is an exciting game in the prospect.

Predicted Playing XIs

Kolkata Knight Riders​: Sunil Narine, Quinton de Kock (wk), Ajinkya Rahane, Angkrish Raghuvanshi, Venkatesh Iyer, Rinku Singh, Andre Russell, Ramandeep Singh, Moeen Ali, Harshit Rana, Varun Chakravarthy, Vaibhav Arora

Sunrisers Hyderabad: Abhishek Sharma, Travis Head, Ishan Kishan, Nitish Reddy, Heinrich Klaasen (wk), Aniket Verma, Abhinav Manohar, Pat Cummins, Harshal Patel, Mohammed Shami, Zeeshan Ansari/Jaydev Unadkat, Wiaan Mulder/Adam Zampa