IPL 2018 Qualifier 2: KKR eye home benefit over SRH

Two-time champions Kolkata Knight Riders will bank on their home advantage when they square off with struggling Sunrisers Hyderabad in the second Qualifier of the ongoing 11th edition of the Indian Premier League (IPL) here at the Eden Gardens on Friday.

Kolkata Knight Riders, who won eight of their 14 group-stage matches, had earlier defeated Rajasthan Royals by 25 runs in the Eliminator match at home to qualify for the second play-off.

The Dinesh Karthik-led side is now focused on outplaying Sunrisers Hyderabad in Qualifier-2 and book their place in the finals of the IPL.

Meanwhile, Sunrisers Hyderabad slumped to a five-wicket defeat at the hands of Chennai Super Kings in the Qualifier 1.

The visitors will now look to bounce back and have to quickly adjust to the conditions at Eden Gardens if they want to stop KKR from entering its third IPL final.

Prior to the playoffs, Sunrisers won nine out of 14 games they have played so far to eventually finish at the top spot based on the net run rate.

It should be noted that KKR and SRH have faced each other 14 times so far, with Kolkata winning on nine occasions.

The two teams are as follows:

Sunrisers Hyderabad: Kane Williamson (C ), Shikhar Dhawan, Manish Pandey, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Wriddhiman Saha, Siddharth Kaul, Deepak Hooda, Khaleel Ahmed, Sandeep Sharma, Yusuf Pathan, Shreevats Goswami, Ricky Bhui, Basil Thampi, T Natarajan, Sachin Baby, Bipul Sharma, Mehdi Hasan, Tanmay Agarwal, Alex Hales, Carlos Brathwaite, Rashid Khan, Shakib Al Hasan, Mohammad Nabi and Chris Jordan.

Kolkata Knight Riders: Andre Russell, Sunil Narine, Chris Lynn, Dinesh Karthik(Captain/Wicket-keeper), Robin Uthappa, Mitchell Johnson, Piyush Chawla, Kuldeep Yadav, Shubman Gill, Ishank Jaggi, Nitish Rana, Vinay Kumar, Apoorv Wankhade, Rinku Singh, Shivam Mavi, Cameron Delport, Javon Searles, Tom Curran, Prasidh Krishna.