The last two matches of the six-week long non-stop cricket carnival – the Indian Premier League (IPL), 2018 – would be over during the next 2-3 days with a much-anticipated finale set for a grand Sunday night clash at 07:00 p.m. at the historic Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai, where M.S. Dhoni led India to its only World Cup ODI victory (within the country) a few years back and where 'God of Cricket' Sachin Tendulkar played his last of the 200 Tests some years after the world cup glory.

For the time being, though, the action remains focused at the picturesque Eden Gardens, Kolkata where the ‘Qualifier-2’ (term it as the ‘second semi-final) match involving the Sunrisers Hyderabad would be played on Friday night at 07:00 p.m. All the points accumulated during the league stage won’t count during Friday’s knock-out match as the winner gets to meet Chennai Super Kings (CSK) on Sunday night while the loser would have to cool their heels till the next edition of the IPL in April, 2019!

Thanks to its good showing during the league stage where it topped the points table, SRH gets a ‘second life’ after losing Tuesday’s ‘Qualifier-1’ match against CSK by two wickets. It is this ‘concession’ in the IPL which makes it very special as all the teams eye the top spot during the league stage just in case the team fails to get it right the first time during the 'Qualifier-1' match.

Theoretically speaking, both SRH and KKR can win the coveted IPL trophy by winning back-to-back matches on Friday and Sunday while CSK would hope for one last laugh on Sunday night before it wins. KKR and SRH have relied heavily on spinners for all their victories thus far in this tournament. In the spinning battle, though, KKR has a clear edge as it has three full-fledged spinners (Piyush Chawla, Sunil Narine and Kuldeep Yadav) while SRH only has Rashid Khan and Shakib Al Hasan.

Sunil’s big-hitting instincts at the top has helped KKR on most occasions while SRH has played around the good-form of Shikhar Dhawan, Kane Williamson and Manish Pandey who have scored among themselves more than 60% of the team’s score thus far in the tournament. KKR has a potent batting line-up in Narine, Lynn, Uthappa, Dinesh, Russel, Gill and Rana, while SRH would hope badly that the likes of Shakib, Brathwaite and Yusuf Pathan come good in the all-important match on Friday night at the Eden Gardens.

Bhuvaneshwar Kumar, a India regular in all the three formats (Tests, ODIs and T20s), has been a constant performer for SRH while Sandeep Sharma and Siddharth Kaul (who has now earned himself an opportunity to play for India) have ably supported him. Emergence of Prasidh Krishna as a more-than-useful ‘death’ bowler and Andre Russel’s all-round talents have stood KKR in good stead in the league matches.

For the sake of sheer sentiment, both the teams are likely to retain the same XI from their (respective) last matches. KKR leads the head-to-head clashes 9-5 in 14 matches at all venues and as 5-1 in six matches at the Eden Gardens. Dice are loaded heavily favour of the ‘home team’ i.e. KKR but as they say, ‘cricket is a funny game full of glorious uncertainties’ and nothing can be said with any degree of certainty till the last ball of the match is bowled!

Expect a high-octane clash which would be very close right from Ball One!

Players to watch out for:

KKR: Sunil Narine, Uthappa, Shakib, Piyush Chawla, Kuldeep Yadav
SRH: Shikhar Dhawan, Kane Williamson, Manish Pandey, Bhuvaneshwar Kumar