IPL 2024: Predicting 3 players who could pick up the most wickets in today’s KKR vs SRH

There are a thousand sub-plots to watch-out for in the second match of the first IPL 2024 double-header between Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) and the SunRisers Hyderabad (SRH) at Kolkata's Eden Gardens on Saturday.

There's a big captaincy dynamic between Pat Cummins and Aiden Markram (who might not even get to play!), there's competiton of the two most expensive players in IPL history between Cummins and Mitchell Starc, there's Gautam Gambhir's first match back at Eden, Shreyas Iyer's return and so on.

But most of all, it's a competion between perhaps the best pace and spin attacks in the tournament. Both usually carry two shaky batting lineups which hardly win any games on their own. We are bound to see a ton of wickets.

Here's our predictions for the top three wicket-takers for the game:

#3 Bhuvneshwar Kumar

It's been ages since KKR had a 50-run partnership from their openers. Last season, they tried a myriad combinations but none worked. This season, the ICC's second-ranked T20 batter Phil Salt's arrival has given some hope. However, who would partner him and what would be the top-order's shape is anybody's guess.

The man best placed to use that to his advantage his Bhuvneshwar Kumar. However, the wicket might be, there's likely to be early swing available for him given it's the first game of the season. Kumar has played 27 matches agains KKR (the most for him against any team) and has 32 wickets at an average of 24.

Even if he doesn't get a lot of success at the top, he has always had a penchant for picking a host of scalps in the lower-order. He showed that in the Uttar Pradesh's local T20 league last year where he was the fourth-highest wicket-taker. While he seems to have vanished from the Indian selectors' radar, work has surely gone behind the scenes and we might see the results on Saturday.

#2 Umran Malik

SRH's Umran Malik is perhaps the most anti-KKR pacer in the IPL. That shows in his figures from last three matches 2/27, 3/33 and 1/36 and overall average 20.50. His consistently high pace, ability to extract daunting bounce from any pitch without giving batters any room for the batters to work with is unmatched.

Rahmanullah Gurbaz, Nitish Rana, Shreyas Iyer, Andre Russell, Sunil Narine and even Rinku Singh struggle with that kind of bowling. That's almost the entire KKR batting lineup. Plus now, with the two-bouncer/over rule, he would be twice the bowler too. KKR would have to do extremely well to not give him wickets.

#1 Varun Chakaravarthy

Being labeled a 'mystery' spinner always comes with a burden. People expect more from you than a good off-spinner or a leggie. KKR's Varun Chakaravarthy went through exactly that in 2021-22 when he was picked for India straight for a T20 World Cup and dropped soon after the tournament ended.

And he came out much, much better. It went mostly unnoticed again but he was one of the best spinners in IPL 2023, picking 20 wickets at 21.45. Having worked on cutting down and fine-tuning his variations, he was arduous to pick for more batters and almost impossible to get away for big shots.

His best spell of 4/15 came at the Eden Gardens -- a pitch that became infamous for being unsupportive for the home team's spin strengths. If the venue favor spinners more (as seen during the World Cup), Chakaravarthy would become a demon to counter and wickets would almost certainly follow that.