Ahmedabad (Gujarat) [India], May 13 : Ahead of the fixture against Gujarat Titans in the Indian Premier League 2024 at the Narendra Modi Stadium on Monday, Kolkata Knight Riders opener Phil Salt hailed all-rounder Sunil Narine saying that he frees up every player in the team to play in the way as they want.
In a game reduced to 16 overs a side due to rain, a fantastic comeback effort by KKR spinners helped derail the MI run-chase of 158 runs, restricting them to 139/8 in 16 overs in the IPL 2024 clash making the two-time champions the first team to reach the playoffs.
The Knights equalled the record for most wins at a particular venue along with five-time champion Mumbai Indians which is 52 in the history of the cash-rich league.
While GT's chances of featuring in the playoffs are quite slim. If they clinch victory in their remaining two games, then they will be able to move 14 points their qualification will depend on their net run rate.
"...We have come here and still looking for the two points. I have a bit more hair and lean muscle [than former KKR opener Chris Lynn]. You want to come in and do well. Lynny did that for a few years. I want to perform to the best of my ability. There are a lot of different surfaces in India, the stuff about black soil and red soil. As much as anything else, it is about assessing and adapting on the day. Our point of difference is we have got Sunny [Sunil Narine]. He frees the rest of the guys up to play the way they like. He's very chilled, as am I, in the middle," Salt said in the pre-match interview.
Chris Lynn, a right-handed explosive opener like Salt himself, represented KKR from 2014 to 2019. He scored 1,274 runs at an average of 34.43 and a strike rate of 141.40, with 10 half-centuries. His best score was 93* in 40 matches.
Kolkata Knight Riders Squad: Shreyas Iyer (c), Nitish Rana, Rinku Singh, Rahmanullah Gurbaz, Phil Salt, Sunil Narine, Suyash Sharma, Anukul Roy, Andre Russell, Venkatesh Iyer, Harshit Rana, Vaibhav Arora, Varun Chakaravarthy, KS Bharat, Chetan Sakariya, Mitchell Starc, Angkrish Raghuvanshi, Ramandeep Singh, Sherfane Rutherford, Manish Pandey, Allah Ghazanfar, Dushmantha Chameera, Sakib Hussain.
Gujarat Titans Squad: Shubman Gill (c), David Miller, Matthew Wade, Wriddhiman Saha, Kane Williamson, Abhinav Manohar, B. Sai Sudharsan, Darshan Nalkande, Vijay Shankar, Jayant Yadav, Rahul Tewatia, Noor Ahmad, Sai Kishore, Rashid Khan, Joshua Little, Mohit Sharma, Azmatullah Omarzai, Umesh Yadav, Shahrukh Khan, Sushant Mishra, Kartik Tyagi, Manav Suthar, Spencer Johnson, Sandeep Warrier, BR Sharath.
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