The Kolkata Knight Riders and Royal Challengers Bangalore are worried about injuries going into Match No. 9 of the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2023. As the IPL returns to the famous Eden Gardens stadium on Thursday, the home team, KKR, will be without Shreyas Iyer because of an injury and Shakib al Hasan because of personal reasons. The visiting team, the RCB, will be without Josh Hazlewood and Reece Topley.
Nitish Rana, the captain of KKR, might choose to play the same team that lost the first game of the IPL 2023 to Punjab Kings by 7 runs (DLS method) against Faf du Plessis and RCB. Even though Jason Roy, an English batsman, has replaced Shreyas Iyer, he is not expected to join the team before their next game in Ahmedabad.
On the other hand, RCB will try to replace Topley with David Willey, who is also English. Topley, who RCB got at the IPL 2023 auction for Rs 1.9 crore as a backup for Hazlewood, dislocated his shoulder while fielding in their first game against the Mumbai Indians in Bengaluru.
Willey will be a good option for Topley because he is a left-handed pacer and a good batter lower in the lineup. In their first match against MI, which they won by eight wickets, RCB didn’t use the “impact player” choice. If they bat second, they can swap Akash Deep or Mohammed Siraj with Suyash Prabhudesai or Anuj Rawat.
Shardul Thakur gave up 43 runs in the first IPL 2023 game, so KKR might decide to replace him with Kulwant Khejroliya. If they are playing second, they might use Venkatesh Iyer as the “impact player” again instead of Varun Chakravarthy.
