Lucknow Super Giants aim to shore up playoff chances against struggling KKR

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Lucknow Super Giants and Kolkata Knight Riders are two teams on opposite ends of the points table. Super Giants are currently second with 14 points from ten games. One more win and they will be within touching distance of the playoffs.

Knight Riders are placed eighth with four wins from ten games. If they lose on Saturday, they will be all but out of the race.

In Super Giants' last two games, they replaced a struggling Manish Pandey with a bowler. That gave Deepak Hooda a chance to bat at No. 3, where he notched up scores of 34 off 28 and 52 off 34.

But with their middle order still underperforming, playing one batter fewer could also backfire, as it almost did against Punjab Kings before Dushmantha Chameera and Mohsin Khan rescued them with some lusty blows towards the end.

Their bowling attack, though, is without any holes. They have the pace of Chameera, the left-arm angle of Mohsin, and the death-bowling skills of Avesh Khan and Jason Holder. When it comes to spin, Ravi Bishnoi's fast legbreaks, sliders and googlies are there, as is an upgraded version of Krunal Pandya's left-arm spin. While their batting has largely revolved around KL Rahul, six of their bowlers have picked up eight or more wickets in the tournament.

Knight Riders put an end to their five-match losing streak with a seven-wicket win over Rajasthan Royals, but there is no end to their problems. Their openers haven't fired. Their bowlers, with the exception of Sunil Narine, have had mixed returns. They have even dropped two of their retained players, Venkatesh Iyer and Varun Chakravarthy.

However, if their bowlers can dismiss Rahul and Quinton de Kock early, they can surprise Super Giants, as a lot of other match-ups are in their favour.

In the news

Avesh didn't play Super Giants' last match as he had just recovered from a "small injury" and the franchise didn't want him to play back-to-back games. But after a further gap of six days, he should be back in the XI on Saturday. If so, K Gowtham will have to miss out.

Likely XIs

Lucknow Super Giants: 1 Quinton de Kock (wk), 2 KL Rahul (capt), 3 Deepak Hooda, 4 Marcus Stoinis, 5 Krunal Pandya, 6 Ayush Badoni, 7 Jason Holder, 8 Avesh Khan/K Gowtham, 9 Mohsin Khan, 10 Dushmantha Chameera, 11 Ravi Bishnoi

Kolkata Knight Riders: 1 B Indrajith (wk), 2 Aaron Finch, 3 Shreyas Iyer (capt), 4 Nitish Rana, 5 Rinku Singh, 6 Andre Russell, 7 Anukul Roy, 8 Sunil Narine, 9 Tim Southee, 10 Umesh Yadav, 11 Shivam Mavi

Strategy punts

• Knight Riders can bowl Narine and Andre Russell in tandem against Super Giants' middle order. Narine has dismissed Hooda twice in 20 balls while giving away only 19 runs. He has also troubled Marcus Stoinis (23 balls, 21 runs, one dismissal) and Pandya (24 balls, 25 runs, two dismissals). All combined, it's 65 runs off 67 balls for five dismissals against those three batters.

  The real bogeyman for Stoinis, though, has been Russell. He has got Stoinis out three times in 19 balls while conceding only 12 runs. Jason Holder too has struggled against him, getting out four times in 18 balls for 21 runs. For Hooda, it's one dismissal in ten balls for just four runs. The only Super Giants middle-order batter with a favourable match-up against Russell is Pandya, who has hit him for 32 runs off 22 balls for one dismissal.

• So far in IPL 2022, Holder has bowled across all three phases of the innings but against Knight Riders, Super Giants should avoid bowling him when Russell is out in the middle, as Russell has taken him for 42 runs off 24 balls for just one dismissal.

Stats that matter

• In each of the ten games in Pune, captains have opted to bowl after winning the toss. However, their teams won only three of those games.

• Among those who have bowled at least ten overs in the middle phase this season, Narine (5.00) has the best economy rate. Pandya is second on that list with 5.95.

• Rahul has taken Narine for 131 runs off 72 balls (strike rate 181.94) for two dismissals.

• So far, Knight Riders have tried five opening pairs, the most by any team in the competition, and their average opening stand of 14.40 is the worst in the tournament.