From Nos. 3 to 6, Super Giants’ batters have averaged 21.88, which is the worst of any team this season. They have attempted to use the flexibility offered by their plethora of allrounders to maximise match-ups, trying as many as nine batters – including K Gowtham, Jason Holder and Karan Sharma – at Nos. 3 and 4 alone. But it hasn’t always worked, and the middle order has turned into an area of weakness.
Super Giants will go through if they win Wednesday’s game at the DY Patil Stadium. A win for Knight Riders, however, will add considerable spice to the final set of league-stage contests.
Kolkata Knight Riders: 1 B Indrajith, 2 Venkatesh Iyer, 3 Shreyas Iyer (capt), 4 Nitish Rana, 5 Sam Billings (wk), 6 Rinku Singh, 7 Andre Russell, 8 Sunil Narine, 9 Umesh Yadav, 10 Tim Southee, 11 Varun Chakravarthy
Lucknow Super Giants: 1 Quinton de Kock (wk), 2 KL Rahul (capt), 3 Deepak Hooda, 4 Krunal Pandya, 5 Marcus Stoinis, 6 Ayush Badoni, 7 Jason Holder, 8 Avesh Khan, 9 Mohsin Khan, 10 Ravi Bishnoi, 11 Dushmantha Chameera
