Kolkata Knight Riders will be looking to carry on their momentum gained from the previous game when they lock horns with LSG at the Eden Gardens. Rahane and co. handed a mammoth 80-run thrashing to SRH in their previous encounter. They will now face an unpredictable LSG side led by Rishabh Pant. The hosts won’t be looking to make many changes to their playing XI.
KKR predicted playing XI vs LSG
| Position | Player | Role |
| 1. | Quinton de Kock (WK) ✈️ | Batter |
| 2. | Sunil Narine ✈️ | All-rounder |
| 3. | Ajinkya Rahane (C) | Batter |
| 4. | Venkatesh Iyer | All-rounder |
| 5. | Rinku Singh | Batter |
| 6. | Ramandeep Singh | All-rounder |
| 7. | Moeen Ali ✈️ | All-rounder |
| 8. | Anrich Nortje ✈️ | Bowler |
| 9. | Harshit Rana | Bowler |
| 10. | Varun Chakravarthy | Bowler |
| 11. | Vaibhav Arora | Bowler |
Will Russell be dropped for Nortje?
Andre Russell has hardly fired with the bat in IPL 2025 so far. Not that he can be blamed, given that he has faced just 16 deliveries in 4 matches. However, his returns have been quite poor. He has registered scores of 4, 5 and 1 so far. KKR are not short of batting firepower in any manner, given the likes of Rahane, Venkatesh, Rinku and Ramandeep in fray.
On the contrary, he has been quite effective with the ball. Although he didn’t bowl in the first two matches, he made it up in the next two games. He registered figures of 2/35 and 2/21 against MI and SRH respectively.
KKR could opt to rest Russell for a game and play Anrich Nortje instead. The South African pacer, who was recovering from his injury, seems to be fully fit now. He was spotted bowling in full tilt ahead of the LSG contest. Nortje could potentially offer the same firepower in terms of bowling that Russell did.
Will KKR get spin advantage at home?
KKR will rely heavily on their spinners – Varun, Narine and Moeen – to do the most damage to LSG at the Eden Gardens. KKR’s request for an used pitch was reportedly denied by pitch curator Sujan Mukherjee, Instead, pitch number 4, which may offer similar turn as witnessed in the previous game, will be used for the LSG contest.
Pacers Vaibhav Arora, Harshit and Nortje will play a crucial role in chipping in with wickets. The spinners, on the other hand, will have the dual task of keeping a check on the flow of runs as well as taking wickets in the middle-overs.
KKR squad for IPL 2025
Quinton de Kock(w), Sunil Narine, Ajinkya Rahane(c), Venkatesh Iyer, Rinku Singh, Angkrish Raghuvanshi, Moeen Ali, Andre Russell, Ramandeep Singh, Harshit Rana, Varun Chakaravarthy, Manish Pandey, Vaibhav Arora, Luvnith Sisodia, Anukul Roy, Rovman Powell, Anrich Nortje, Mayank Markande, Spencer Johnson, Rahmanullah Gurbaz, Chetan Sakariya
