Chennai Super Kings vs Kolkata Knight Riders, Wankhede Stadium
Safe XI: Sam Billings, Shreyas Iyer, Nitish Rana, Devon Conway, Ruturaj Gaikwad (capt), Andre Russell, Venkatesh Iyer (vice-capt), Ravindra Jadeja, Varun Chakravarthy, Dwayne Bravo, Maheesh Theekshana
Captain: Ruturaj Gaikwad
Gaikwad was IPL 2021’s highest run-scorer, with 635 runs in 16 games at an average of 45.35, making him the best captaincy choice for this season’s opener. His scores against Kolkata Knight Riders in the IPL are 72, 64, 40 and 32. On a few occasions, he has been slightly troubled by overseas quicks early on in the innings, but in the absence of Pat Cummins, Gaikwad is expected to make an immediate impact.
Vice-captain: Shreyas Iyer
Knight Riders’ new captain and India’s in-form batter Shreyas Iyer is a great choice for one of the captaincy roles. His last three T20I scores for India were 73*, 74* and 57*, and he has scored 549 runs in 11 innings across formats for India since the beginning of this year.
Hot picks :
Venkatesh Iyer, Ravindra Jadeja
Differential picks:
Devon Conway, Maheesh Theekshana
High Risk XI: MS Dhoni, Ambati Rayudu, Robin Uthappa, Shreyas Iyer, Andre Russell (capt), Ravindra Jadeja (vice-capt), Sunil Narine, Shivam Dube, Chris Jordan, Tim Southee, Varun Chakravarthy
