Depleted KKR seek home comfort against star-studded RCB

Hit by injuries and unavailability of key players twotime champions Kolkata Knight Riders will seek home comfort and look to return to winning ways when they face a starstudded Royal Challengers Bangalore in the IPL here on ThursdayHaving started their campaign with a sevenrun defeat via DuckworthLewis method against Punjab Kings at Mohali KKR suffered twin blowsFirst premier Bangladesh allrounder Shakib Al Hasan pulled out of the tournament because of family reasons and international commitments and the next day regular skipper Shreyas Iyer who is also their batting mainstay was ruled out of the entire IPL as he will undergo a surgery to treat his back injuryKKR had made Nitish Rana their standin skipper assuming that their regular skipper would be back in the second half of the season but with Iyer ruled out completely the Chandrakant Panditcoached side may face a leadership crisisAccidental skipper Rana who has experience of leading Delhi in whiteball cricket has a big task ahead of him as the team desperately seeks some solace in its denThe buzz is that KKRs owner Shah Rukh Khan will be in the house when they return here after 1438 days They last played at Eden Gardens on April 28 2019 a 34run win over Mumbai Indians before COVID19 hit the worldThe excitement will be at an alltime high for both teams with crowdpuller Virat Kohli in the visitors dug outKKR looked a shadow of their past in their seasonopener which was interrupted by a floodlight glitch before the skies opened upIyers absence has made the batting feeble A quickfire fiftyrun partnership between Andre Russell and Venkatesh Iyer who was promoted to No 4 was the highlight of their batting against PunjabKKR also can take positives from a cracking start by Afghan wicketkeeperbatter Rahmanullah Gurbaz who smashed a flurry of boundaries and a 101metre six before perishing for 22Also readShakib Al Hasan opts out of IPL KKR to seek replacementKKR had blamed the power failure in the innings break for their drop in momentum but the truth is they will have to raise the barOn the bowling front the likes of Tim Southee and Sunil Narine leaked runs something they will have to addressNarine looked to have lost his mystery ball as the Punjab batters took him to the cleanersKKRs attack will be put to test against the likes of Faf du Plessis and Virat Kohli who looked in imperious touch in an unbeaten 82 in their eightwicket win over Mumbai IndiansRCBs pace trio of Mohammed Siraj Harshal Patel and Akash Deep will also look to make it count on a seamingfriendly EdenBut they are likely to miss English pacer Reece Topley who suffered a shoulder dislocation David Willey is expected to replace himTeamsKolkata Knight Riders Nitish Rana c Rahmanullah Gurbaz Venkatesh Iyer Andre Russell Sunil Narine Shardul Thakur Lockie Ferguson Umesh Yadav Tim Southee Harshit Rana Varun Chakravarthy Anukul Roy Rinku Singh N Jagadeesan Vaibhav Arora Suyash Sharma David Wiese Kulwant Khejroliya Litton Das and Mandeep SinghRoyal Challengers Bangalore Faf du Plessis c Virat Kohli Suyash Prabhudessai Dinesh Karthik Anuj Rawat Finn Allen Glenn Maxwell Wanindu Hasaranga Shahbaz Ahmed Harshal Patel David Willey Karn Sharma Mahipal Lomror Mohammed Siraj Josh Hazlewood Siddarth Kaul Akash Deep Reece Topley Himanshu Sharma and Michael BracewellMatch starts at 730PMThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever