IPL 2018 Fantasy Guru: What your team should look like for KXIP vs KKR

Subs used – 1; Subs remaining – 16

Jos Buttler out – Chris Gayle in

(Uncapped) Krishnappa Gowtham out – Nitish Rana in

Uncapped preference order: Nitish Rana, Ankit Rajpoot, Prasidh Krishna, Shubman Gill (BP No.7)

Captain – KL Rahul

Captaincy preference order: KL Rahul, Chris Gayle, Robin Uthappa, Andre Russell

Differential - Robin Uthappa

Multipliers remaining - 2

Guru’s team ahead of KXIP vs KKR: KL Rahul, C Gayle, R Uthappa, A Rayudu, R Pant, S Iyer, J Archer, B Kumar, S Kaul, A Russell, N Rana

The ground is small, the pitch, while nowhere close to being as flat as it usually is, is still acceptable, and Sunil Narine is the only threat in the opposition for him – there is little reason to leave Chris Gayle out here.

KL Rahul, Andre Russell and Robin Uthappa are all already in my team. While Rahul is a no-brainer, you can afford to go in without the other two if this is the only match you are looking at, as they haven’t shown the sort of consistency you would like to see from them.

The other players worth considering include Andrew Tye, Mujeeb Zadran, Chris Lynn and Sunil Narine. You can’t expect Tye to take four wickets every day, but courtesy of bowling at the death, he will more often than not give you steady returns. Kings XI Punjab play RCB next, so with Virat Kohli and AB de Villiers due, I don’t see a double-game value in getting the Australian pacer in now. Therefore, I have decided to keep him out.

Kolkata Knight Riders play spin well, which should considerably reduce the impact Mujeeb can have on the match. With Narine and Lynn playing next only after a gap of four matches, I can’t bring them in for just the one match, as I don’t expect them to have it easy today either. If you are looking for one of them, Narine is a better bet, as Lynn has three spinners to deal with in the KXIP bowling unit.