KKR vs SRH Playing 11, IPL 2024: Phil Salt misses out for KKR, Marco Jansen dropped SRH and Shreyas Iyer’s defining season | Cricket News

Kolkata Knight Riders vs Sunrisers Hyderabad Playing 11, IPL 2024: Kolkata Knight Riders will be buoyed he presence of their skipper Shreyas Iyer and their most successful captain and now mentor Gautam Gambhir in their midst as the take on an unpredictable Sunrisers Hyderabad unit on Saturday.
Hyderabad, meanwhile, have a problem of plenty with huge overseas names in their team with the presence of World Cup winners Travis Head and captain Pat Cummins, South Africa’s Aiden Markram and Heinrich Klaasen plus Glenn Phillips, Fazalhaq Farooqi and Marco Jansen. With just 4 overseas slots in the team, picking the right players might turn out to be a headache for SRH.
Let us have a look at probable XI’s
Rahmanullah Gurbaz and Venkatesh Iyer open, Phil Salt misses out
After Jason Roy opted out of this year’s tournament, the KKT think tank brought in Englishman Phil Salt as his replacement but it looks like the England player might have to wait for his debut. For the first match, the Knights are likely to opt for a tested opening pair in Rahmanullah Gurbaz and Venkatesh Iyer. Gurbaz is an aggressive striker and will be looking to give KKR a good start in the powerplay. Meanwhile, Iyer, who did not start well as an opener last season getting replaced Roy, slotted in the middle order and became the first player after the great Brendon McCullum to score a ton for the Knights.
Marco Jansen might miss out for SRH
South African speedster Marco Jansen who had taken 10 wickets in 8 matches last season and also had a stellar World Cup might miss out on Saturday. Travis Head will likely start with Abhishek Tripathi and Markram and Klaasen will make it to shore up the middle order as well as the latter’s wicketkeeping skills. Cummins will lead the bowling attack and round off the 4 overseas pick which will see Jansen sit this one out due to the aforementioned problem of plenty.
Shreyas Iyer’s defining season for KKR
Kolkata captain Shreyas Iyer has been in the eye of the storm for the past few months with his BCCI contract terminated and his fitness in question. On Saturday, the most experienced current captain in the league will look to answer all doubters as he takes to the field in his first home match as Kolkata captain.
KKR Predicted XI: Rahmanullah Gurbaz, Venkatesh Iyer, Shreyas Iyer, Nitish Rana, Rinku Singh, Andre Russell, Sunil Narine, Mitchell Starc, Chetan Sakariya, Varun Chakravarthy, Suyash Sharma.
SRH Predicted XI: Travis Head, Abhishek Sharma, Rahul Tripathi, Aiden Markram, Heinrich Klaasen, Abdul Samad, Shahbaz Ahmed, Pat Cummins, Mayank Markande, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, T Natarajan