Mullanpur (Punjab) [India], April 14 : As Punjab Kings takes on defending champions Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) on Tuesday, PBKS skipper Shreyas Iyer will be locking horns with a unit that he led to their third Indian Premier League (IPL) trophy just during the last season.
The sixth-placed PBKS, with three wins and two losses, including a heavy defeat while defending 246 against SRH at Hyderabad, will be taking on KKR, who are placed in fifth place with three wins in six matches, having secured an easy win over Chennai Super Kings (CSK) in their previous match.
Iyer has a solid record against his former franchise, against whom he played as a part of the Delhi Capitals (DC) franchise, scoring 456 runs in 14 innings at an average of 41.45, with a strike rate of over 150. He has scored two half-centuries against DC, with best score of 93*.
Iyer also dominates against lead spinners of KKR, Sunil Narine and Varun Chakravarthy in head-to-head battle, scoring 42 in 35 balls and 38 off 22 balls against them respectively, with both having dismissed Iyer once each.
In the ongoing season, Iyer is the fourth-highest run-getter and his team's top-run-getter, with 250 runs in five innings at an average of 83.33, with a strike rate of 208.33, and three half-centuries. His best score is 97*.
Squads:
Kolkata Knight Riders Squad: Quinton de Kock(w), Sunil Narine, Ajinkya Rahane(c), Rinku Singh, Venkatesh Iyer, Moeen Ali, Andre Russell, Ramandeep Singh, Harshit Rana, Vaibhav Arora, Varun Chakaravarthy, Angkrish Raghuvanshi, Manish Pandey, Anukul Roy, Luvnith Sisodia, Rovman Powell, Anrich Nortje, Mayank Markande, Rahmanullah Gurbaz, Chetan Sakariya, Spencer Johnson
Punjab Kings Squad: Priyansh Arya, Prabhsimran Singh(w), Shreyas Iyer(c), Nehal Wadhera, Shashank Singh, Glenn Maxwell, Marcus Stoinis, Marco Jansen, Yuzvendra Chahal, Arshdeep Singh, Yash Thakur, Suryansh Shedge, Praveen Dubey, Vijaykumar Vyshak, Harpreet Brar, Azmatullah Omarzai, Josh Inglis, Xavier Bartlett, Vishnu Vinod, Aaron Hardie, Kuldeep Sen, Harnoor Singh, Musheer Khan, Pyla Avinash.