Pitch Stats – Eden Gardens
Average first innings score: 163
Average first innings winning score: 175
Average powerplay score: 47
Win % batting 1st vs batting 2nd: 43% / 57%
Team form KKR vs CSK
KKR: LLLWW
CSK: WWLWW
Recent meetings: IPL 2022 - KKR won by 6 wickets
The Knight Riders lost their 3rd game in a row against in a low scoring match against Delhi Capitals. In all honesty, it should have been a comfortable victory for DC before a late innings wobble turned it into a tense finish.
KKR's problems in that game are nothing new! I could easily copy and paste content from almost any match preview of theirs from the last 2 seasons to critique their woeful top order. They chopped and changed again in the match against the Capitals to give Liton Das and Jason Roy their debuts for the franchise.
Roy did fairly well to make 43 as wickets continued to tumble around him on what was a very slow pitch. As a Surrey county cricket fan, I've been watching Roy's career up close since he broke into the Championship side over a decade ago. There have been many ups and downs for England since then and I think his impact can be summed up as follows - when he's good, he's very very good and when he's bad he's awful.
He comes into the IPL off some really good from for England's ODI side not to mention the 145 not out he scored from 63 balls in the PSL last month. KKR really need that form to continue if they are to rescue their season.
You only need to glance across at what CSK's top order are doing to see why you need a solid foundation to build winning scores. Their batsmen continue to churn out runs in a way very similar to what they achieved in the 2021 season when of course they were crowned champions. That kind of consistency plays right into the tactics that the Super Kings favour - get out in front and then apply the pressure to the opposition. It's a tactic that has been paying dividends for a long time!
| Match Day | CSK openers | KKR openers |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Gaikwad 92 | Gurbaz 22 |
| 2 | Gaikwad 57 | Gurbaz 57 |
| 3 | Gaikwad 40 | Gurbaz 15 |
| 4 | Conway 50 | Jagadeesn 36 |
| 5 | Conway 83 | Gurbaz 8 |
| 6 | Conway 77* | Roy 43 |
Top score by an opening batsman per match day
As for Liton Das, his wicket keeping looks well below the required standard at this level. A missed stumping and some generally slow glove work on a couple of run out attempts let Delhi off the hook on Thursday night. By contrast, CSK have MS Dhoni who took a great catch, completed a stumping and generally looked very sharp with the gloves on, all at the ripe old age of 41. Opposition batsmen know that with him behind the stumps, any mistake is very likely to be terminal. I'm not sure that the same can be said for any of KKR's keeping options.
KKR bowled an incredible 16 overs of spin in their match at the Arun Jaitley with even Nitish Rana finishing a 4 over spell which is as many deliveries as he's bowled in the last 2 seasons of IPL combined!
We saw a turning pitch here at Eden Gardens for KKR's win against RCB last month but it'd be high risk for the Knight Riders to produce something similar for this game against a CSK side that is primed for such conditions. The alternative would be to produce an absolute belter as was the case against the Sunrisers game here but of course CSK have shown they are very capable of scoring big runs when the occasion calls for it.
It looks likely then that conditions will play less of a role in determining a winner than has been the case in a few of the recent matches and instead it will come down to who plays better on the day which on current form looks likely to be CSK...
CSK bowling vs KKR batting
KKR opted to use 2 of their overseas spots against DC for their opening batsmen. Will we see the same tactic again? Certainly if it is a slow and/or turning pitch then it looks like they have the spinners to fill their overs without the need of Lockie Ferguson.
Theekshana vs Gurbaz T20 head to head
Meanwhile CSK have used Theekshana in the powerplay in each of their last 3 games and they will almost certainly look to match him up against Jason Roy in this fixture. The alternative then for KKR is to use a player who will take the Sri Lankan on and that could mean a recall for Rahmanullah Gurbaz who has an excellent T20 record against Theekshana.
| Batsman (hand) | Ave vs right arm finger spin | Ave vs left arm finger spin |
|---|---|---|
| Iyer (L) | 67.0 | 48.5 |
| Rana (L) | 34.6 | 86.7 |
| Rinku (L) | 34.0 | 18.0 |
| Mandeep (R) | 29.7 | 16.3 |
| Russell (R) | 34.5 | 28.4 |
KKR batsmen match-up vs finger spin
Chennai will also feel that they have the match-ups to try and limit the KKR middle order. Mooen Ali is likely to play a key role against KKR's 3 left-handers in Iyer, Rana and Rinku Singh while Ravi Jadeja will target Andre Russell and potenitally Mandeep Singh assuming he keeps his place. You'd imagine that KKR will want to have a right-hander in amongst that middle order to avoid the 3 lefties coming in one after another.
Venkatesh Iyer IPL 2023 stats vs spin
Of course what CSK do lack is a high quality pace bowler who can come in and rough up a few of these KKR middle order batsmen when it's called for. The likes of Venkatesh Iyer have looked very comfortable against spin this season as the stats above show. Where he has struggled is against either left-arm swing (dismissed by Arshdeep, Willey and Jansen) or genuine pace (Joseph, Meredith and Nortje). Can CSK's young pacers step up to the mark and get Venkatesh early in this game?
KKR bowling vs CSK batting
Eden Gardens is a venue where many of CSK's experienced batsmen have enjoyed success on previous IPL visits. Moeen Ali scored a brilliant 66 from 28 balls on his last visit here and he'll play an important role against Sunil Narine in this match.
Moeen Ali IPL batting stats at Eden Gardens
I was listening to part of the Capitals vs Knight Riders game on the radio during my drive back from work on Thursday and former England player Ravi Bopara was part of the commentary team. He told a story of how he and Moeen studies hours of footage of Narine ahead of a series against the West Indies and had worked out a way to pick him. Ultimately Narine made a slight alteration to his action in order to combat that but the ancedote gave a fascinating insight into what is essentially an arms race between batsmen and bowlers to work out each others various weapons.
Narine vs Rahane T20 head to head
One player who hasn't enjoyed his previous 10 games at Eden Garden (average 16, S/R 105) or facing Sunil Narine is Ajinke Rahane. It'd be fair to say that the experienced right-hander is playing in a manner that we've not seen regularly for much of his T20 career but it will be interesting to see whether they persist with him at 3 or potentially shift Moeen up the order to go after Narine.
Chakravarthy all T20 dismissals vs Dhoni during the death overs
We saw KKR bowl 16 straight overs of spin in their last game against DC and had they have had the option to do so, I'd imagine that they would have bowled a spinner in the 20th over as well. Holding Varun Chakravarthy back to bowl at the back end of the innings might well be the plan again against this CSK batting line-up given the success that he's had at limiting Jadeja and dismissing Dhoni.
All stats used in this blog are from my own databases which are freely accessible below
IPL head to head player stats
IPL player stats by venue
IPL stadium statistics.
Images are my own with the exception of player profiles and highlights within GIFs which are not intended to infringe copyright- read full disclaimer. Background images are used under a creative commons license or otherwise royalty free.
