The reigning champions Gujarat Titans will face Kolkata Knight Riders at their home venue of Narendra Modi Stadium, Ahmedabad on Sunday. GT has got off to a perfect start in their title defense as they have won both of their opening matches.
Kolkata Knight Riders, who lost their opening clash against PBKS, bounced back strongly in their last fixture, beating Royal Challengers Bangalore by a gargantuan margin of 81 runs at Eden Gardens.
GT have ticked the right boxes as they have come up with collective efforts. Sai Sudharsan had played a valiant knock of 62 runs in the previous match against DC whereas their bowlers were also right on the money, restricting the opposition to 162.
On the other hand, KKR came up with a dominant performance against RCB. Shardul Thakur turned the match on its head with his whirlwind knock of 68 runs off just 29 balls. Subsequently, their spin trio of Sunil Narine, Varun Chakravarthy, and debutant Suyash Sharma took nine wickets between them.
However, KKR’s top order had once again failed to deliver, barring a fine knock of 57 runs from 44 balls from Rahmanullah Gurbaz. Thus, their batting unit will need to deliver against GT.
Match Prediction: Gujarat Titans will enter the contest as favorites against Kolkata Knight Riders.
GT Squad for IPL 2023: Wicketkeepers: Wriddhiman Saha, Matthew Wade (AUS), KS Bharat, Urvil Patel.
Batters: Abhinav Manohar, David Miller (SA), Sai Sudharsan, Shubman Gill, Kane Williamson (NZ).
All-rounders: Hardik Pandya, Rashid Khan (AFG), Vijay Shankar, Rahul Tewatia, Odean Smith (WI).
Bowlers: Alzarri Joseph (WI), Mohammed Shami, Darshan Nalkande, Noor Ahmad (AFG), R. Sai Kishore, Pradeep Sangwan, Yash Dayal, Jayant Yadav, Mohit Sharma, Joshua Little (IRE), Shivam Mavi.
KKR IPL 2023 SQUAD
Wicketkeepers: Rahmanullah Gurbaz (AFG), N. Jagadeesan, Litton Das (BAN).
Batters: Jason Roy, Nitish Rana ©, Rinku Singh, Mandeep Singh.
All-rounders: Venkatesh Iyer, Anukul Roy, Andre Russel (WI), Shardul Thakur, David Wiese (NAM).
Bowlers: Lockie Ferguson (NZ), Harshit Rana, Sunil Narine (WI), Tim Southee (NZ), Varun Chakravarthy, Umesh Yadav, Suyash Sharma, Vaibhav Arora, Kulwant Khejroliya.
