IPL 2018 Fantasy Guru: What your team should look like for KKR vs SRH
Captain – Kane Williamson
Captaincy preference order: Kane Williamson, Shikhar Dhawan, Andre Russell
Differentials: Kuldeep Yadav, Manish Pandey
Guru’s team ahead of KKR vs SRH: S Dhawan, K Williamson, D Karthik, R Uthappa, S Goswami, S Narine, A Russell, P Krishna, S Kaul, B Kumar, R Khan (Subs remaining – 4)
Kane Williamson has absolutely no threats in this fixture, be it from the deck or the bowling unit, while all Shikhar Dhawan needs to do is find a way to escape Kuldeep Yadav. Between Bhuvneshwar Kumar and Rashid Khan, the former would be a better option today, as the Knight Riders batsmen, barring Chris Lynn, are more susceptible to pace than spin.
There is a decent chance of Shreevats Goswami being a 75-pointer here, with Kolkata Knight Riders lacking extreme pace in their bowling unit to target him and also with him keeping wickets, but I am basically bringing him in to meet my team's combination and budget requirements. If yours doesn’t have any of those concerns, stay away from it.
Ever since Shakib Al Hasan’s demotion in the batting order, his fantasy returns have diminished, so I continue to leave him out. Carlos Brathwaite will not get a bowler like Shardul Thakur to feast on every time. As a result, with Siddarth Kaul getting in as the uncapped pick for the day, I have the Sunrisers Hyderabad side of things covered.
From Kolkata Knight Riders, I already have all their big shots in Andre Russell, Sunil Narine, Dinesh Karthik and Robin Uthappa. With Nitish Rana not at his best and consistently getting demoted for batsmen below him, I will only be missing out on Chris Lynn and Kuldeep Yadav.
There is a reason I had kept both of them out in the eliminator match against Rajasthan Royals: from pace to wrist-spin, the Royals bowling attack had all the variety in it to limit Lynn, while opposition batsmen can mark Kuldeep as the biggest threat in the opposition and play him out – a common fantasy problem with bowlers who aren’t used at the death. That they are also expensive doesn’t work in their favour. It eventually played out as I thought it would. And I expect it to be the same today as well.