Kolkata Knight Riders have had a few days to mull over their disastrous loss against the Punjab Kings, where they failed to chase down 112 against the Punjab Kings and would be keen to get their campaign back on track as they face the table toppers, Gujarat Titans at home.
A loss like that is not easy to erase from anyone’s memories, let alone a professional sports team that is also a reigning champion. Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) would have preferred to have played another game quickly to get their minds off that debacle in Mullanpur against the Punjab Kings, having failed to chase down 112 runs but now that they have had few days to think about that loss, the defending champions will be keen to remind everyone the damage they can cause when on song.
It will not be easy, first to pick themselves up from a defeat like that and then having to face a team like the Gujarat Titans, for whom things just seem to work. The Titans model may contradict all the conventional notions of how a T20 line-up should stack up or the type of players a T20 line-up should consist but they have players, who can win a game on their own and have the clarity of what to do when the onus is on them to take the team towards the victory and as of now, it is working for them.
The top three of Shubman Gill, Sai Sudharsan and Jos Buttler has been the rock for the Titans in IPL 2025 and KKR should see it as an opportunity with Sunil Narine and the swing bowlers in Vaibhav Arora and Harshit Rana to strike early, maybe and put their middle-order under pressure. The Titans will start as favourites but since it is the same pitch as the Sunrisers Hyderabad game, for once it might not be a bad thing for KKR to bat first and pile on a huge score on the board.
My Dream11 team for IPL 2025 Match 39, KKR vs GT
Sunil Narine (vc), Ajinkya Rahane, Shubman Gill (c), Rinku Singh, Jos Buttler, Sai Sudharsan, R Sai Kishore, Varun Chakravarthy, Venkatesh Iyer, Vaibhav Arora, Mohammed Siraj
Probable Playing XIIs
Kolkata Knight Riders: Sunil Narine, Quinton de Kock/Rahmanullah Gurbaz (wk), Ajinkya Rahane (c), Venkatesh Iyer, Angkrish Raghuvanshi, Rinku Singh, Andre Russell, Ramandeep Singh, Harshit Rana, Anrich Nortje, Vaibhav Arora, Varun Chakaravarthy
Gujarat Titans: Shubman Gill (c), Sai Sudharsan, Jos Buttler (wk), Sherfane Rutherford, Shahrukh Khan, Rahul Tewatia, Arshad Khan, Rashid Khan, R Sai Kishore, Mohammed Siraj, Prasidh Krishna, Ishant Sharma/Washington Sundar