Kolkata Knight Riders has played 74 games at its home ground, Eden Gardens, in Kolkata. It has won 45 and lost 29. In the past couple of seasons, KKR’s performance has oscillated between sublime and mediocre, consigning it to the chasing pack for the final playoff spot.
While the verve and energy of the crowd at the historic venue will be a big leg-up for Shreyas Iyer’s men, it will still have its fair share of challenges, especially on the Indian fast bowling front. KKR released Shivam Mavi but failed to acquire an adequate Indian pace bowling replacement for him. Among the positives are their signings of David Wiese, who could be a useful backup for Andre Russell, and N. Jagadeesan and Litton Das, two wicketkeeper-batters who can open the innings. Sunil Narine, Shakib Al Hasan and Varun Chakravarthy may not be the preferred spin triplet at home, given the Kolkata pitch has offered more assistance to pacers lately, but be a handful on the turning pitches of Chennai, one of the seven venues where KKR will play its away games. Mohali, Ahmedabad, Mumbai, Delhi, Bengaluru and Hyderabad are the other venues.
However, KKR’s biggest concern will be the fitness of Iyer, who was ruled out of the recent Australia ODIs due to a recurring back injury. At the time of going to press, the extent to which the injury would impact Iyer’s IPL participation was not clear.
Nitish Rana has been appointed as KKR’s stand-in skipper.
READ | IPL 2023: List of injured players and replacements - latest updates
| EDEN GARDENS, KOLKATA | |
| Average first innings score at Eden Gardens | 163.6 (79 matches) |
| Average first-innings winning score at Eden Gardens | 175.4 (31 off 79 matches) |
| % Teams winning batting first at Eden Gardens | 39.24 (31 off 79 matches) |
| % Teams winning chasing at Eden Gardens | 60.75 (48 off 79 matches) |
| Average Powerplay score at Eden Gardens | 46.24 |
| Average death overs (17-20) score at Eden Gardens | 35.61 |
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