IPL 2017 | RPS vs KKR, Match Preview: Rising Pune Supergiants to lock horns against Kolkata Knight Riders

Rising Pune Supergiants shall be taking on Kolkata Knightriders at the Maharashtra Cricket Stadium in Pune. The match is scheduled to commence at 8 pm in the evening.

Kolkata Knight Riders have won both the clashes between the two teams played in the 2016 season. RPS playing on their home turf at Pune should not take the visitors lightly as they are coming at the back of thumping victory against RCB.

Kolkata Knight Riders are well placed in the second spot on the points table courtesy winning six of their seven games.KKR would be coming into the game after inflicting a crushing defeat on Royal Challengers Bangalore in Eden Gardens. It was a walk in the park for KKR who bowled out the star-studded batting lineup for a paltry 49 runs, the lowest ever in IPL history.

The Purple Brigade has been gelling on all fronts with their batsmen Gautam Gambhir, Robin Uthappa, Manish Pandey and Yusuf Pathan contributing handsomely with the bat. Their bowling has also been well served both in the seam and spin department.

The pace troika of Trent Boult, Chris Woakes and Umesh Yadav have picked up early wickets for their team all through the tournament.

Meanwhile, the team has a galaxy of spinners in Sunil Narine, Kuldeep Yadav and Piyush Chawla who have bagged wickets in the middle overs to choke the opponents' run flow and help their side win games.

Rising Pune Supergiants placed on the points table have been pretty up and down this season.RPS started off their tournament in emphatic fashion win a win over Mumbai Indians but lot their momentum in the next couple of games. Rising Pune Supergiants will be banking on Ajinkya Rahane and Steven Smith to deliver with the bat.

Young turk Rahul Tripathi has showcased a lot of promise with the bat .Pune would be boosted with the resurgence of MS Dhoni who finished off brilliantly against Sunrisers Hyderabad. Ben Stokes who was picked up for a whopping Rs 14.5 crore has not done justice to his price tag.

Pune's worrying factor has been their pace attack which has gone for plenty in the matches so far.With frontline seamer Ashok Dinda out of form, the likes of Jaydev Unadkat and Shardul Thakur shall have to bowl well against a formidable KKR batting. 

Likely Eleven 

Rising Pune Supergiant

1 Ajinkya Rahane, 2 Rahul Tripathi, 3 Steven Smith (capt), 4 Ben Stokes, 5 MS Dhoni (wk), 6 Manoj Tiwary, 7 Dan Christian, 8 Washington Sundar, 9 Shardul Thakur, 10 Imran Tahir, 11 Jaydev Unadkat

Kolkata Knight Riders

1 Gautam Gambhir (capt), 2 Sunil Narine, 3 Robin Uthappa (wk), 4 Manish Pandey, 5 Yusuf Pathan 6 Suryakumar Yadav, 7 Colin de Grandhomme, 8 Chris Woakes, 9 Umesh Yadav, 10 Trent Boult, 11 Kuldeep Yadav