Kolkata Knight Riders vs Delhi Capitals, Match 41 Predictions & Picks

• Delhi Capitals will be aiming for a place in Qualifier 1.
• Almost every match is a do-or-die encounter for Kolkata Knight Riders from here onwards.
• Kolkata’s bowling department will have to be at its best to trouble the DC batters. In their last four matches, Kolkata have restricted the opposition to score of under 150 only once.

Kolkata Knight Riders vs Delhi Capitals Odds

Kolkata Knight Riders vs Delhi Capitals Prediction and Pick

The head-to-head records of these two teams is as neck-and-neck as it could possibly get. The men in purple have a narrow advantage in this regard. They have beaten the team from the capital city on 14 occasions, while Delhi have got the better of the team representing the city of joy on 13 occasions. Recent head-to-head results are inclined towards Delhi, as they have beaten Kolkata in six of their last five meetings. This, coupled with the outstanding current run of form of DC, makes them the firm favourites for this encounter.

Predicted XI

Delhi Capitals: Prithvi Shaw, Shikhar Dhawan, Shreyas Iyer, Rishabh Pant (c & wk), Shimron Hetmyer, Lalit Yadav/Marcus Stoinis, Axar Patel, Ravichandran Ashwin, Kagiso Rabada, Anrich Nortje, Avesh Khan.

Kolkata Knight Riders: Venkatesh Iyer, Shubman Gill, Rahul Tripathi, Eoin Morgan (c), Nitish Rana, Dinesh Karthik (wk), Andre Russell, Sunil Narine, Lockie Ferguson, Varun Chakravarthy, Prasidh Krishna/Sandeep Warrier.

Knights Will Not Have Room for Mistakes Against a Battle-Hardened Delhi Capitals Outfit

The second phase of IPL has seen some tectonic shifts in the points table, but the one team who has been very stable in that regard is Delhi Capitals. They arrived in the UAE after winning five of their first seven matches, and have won all of their three matches since the resumption. They have looked convincing in all of those victories.

The Kolkata Knight Riders team also were going pretty well, until they faced Mahendra Singh Dhoni’s Chennai Super Kings. After pulling off a big win against Royal Challengers Bangalore and then getting the better of Mumbai Indians, Eoin Morgan’s men lost their previous battle against CSK in the last ball of the match.

Team News

Giving Venkatesh Iyer a chance at the top of the order has proved to be a masterstroke, and from the batting point of view, the Knights are unlikely to make any change. It will be interesting to see whether they will change their bowling combination. Prasidh Krishna went for runs aplenty in the last match, and he might be replaced by Sandeep Warrier, who was involved with the Indian team earlier in this year in their series against Sri Lanka.

For Delhi Capitals, there is no need to make any changes. However, if Marcus Stoinis recovers from his injury, he is certain to take up the place of Lalit Yadav. Steve Smith is another alternative Delhi might consider, but since Yadav can bowl a few overs besides being a handy batter, he is the first choice replacement of Stoinis.

Key Players

Venkatesh Iyer: Madhya Pradesh’s 26-year-old all-rounder Venkatesh Iyer, who did not feature at all in the first half, has been a revelation for KKR in the second phase of the tournament. He has scored 112 runs in three matches. KKR struggled with maintaining a good run rate in the initial overs in the first phase, but they don’t have that headache anymore, thanks to Iyer’s strike rate of 155.55.

Shikhar Dhawan: Having missed out on a place in the Indian team for the upcoming ICC T20 World Cup, Dhawan is proving his critics wrong on a consistent basis. He is currently the owner of the Orange Cap, with 430 runs in 10 matches, which includes three half-centuries. Notably, in the previous match against Kolkata Knight Riders, he scored 46 runs.

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