Kolkata Knight Riders are back to their home ground after playing 6 away games in a row. In their last match, KKR beat RCB by chasing down a huge total. Kings XI Punjab played their last match under the captaincy of new captain Murali Vijay and beat Gujarat Lions in the match comprehensively. If Knight Riders win this match, they top the table, whereas if Kings XI win, they will jump to 6^th spot from 8^th position in the table.

Kings XI Punjab won the toss today and put KKR in to bat as KKR have lost both the matches in which they have defended. Gambhir and Uthappa have been in good form for KKR and they continued the same in this match as well as they scored 101 runs for the first wicket. Small contributions from Pathan and Russell helped the Knight Riders to post a target of 165 for the Kings.

While KKR didn’t lose even a single wicket in the first 13 overs, Kings XI lost their first wicket in the 1^st over itself. Russell didn’t stop after picking up the first wicket as in the third over of the innings, he picked up another wicket on the last delivery of the 3^rd over. To add more trouble, Morne Morkel got the captain out on the first ball of 4^th over, putting Kings XI Punjab in all sorts of trouble. Maxwell showed his real batting power and yet again proved why he is known as one of the biggest hitters of a cricket ball. But he and some big hitting from Axar Patel in the end also couldn’t take Kings XI past 165 as they fell short of 7 runs.

Here’s a list of some interesting numbers and stats from this match –

Three Overseas Players – While some teams talk about allowing more than 4 overseas players, Kings XI Punjab fielded only 3 overseas players in this match – Marcus Stoinis, Glenn Maxwell, and David Miller.

Best Opening Pair this IPL – Gambhir and Uthappa put up their 5^th 50 run plus opening stand in this match in IPL 2016. No other opening pair has managed more than 2 50 run plus opening stand this season of IPL.

Running problems for Gambhir – This was the 19^th time that Gambhir has been run-out in T20s. This is the most for any Indian player. Only Mahela Jayawardena is ahead of Gambhir with 20 run-outs in T20s.

Only Run-outs – KKR lost three wickets in their innings and none of the wickets were picked up by bowlers as all the batsman were run-out.

This is the second occurrence of such an event where 2 or more wickets have fallen, but none of the bowlers have picked up those wickets.

Run-outs and only run-outs – 11 wickets have fallen in this match and 5 of them were run-outs.

Russell Power – Man of the match in the previous game and Russell has continued his good form in this game as well with all round performance. First scored 16 off 10 balls. Bowled 4 overs for 20 runs and took 4 wickets. On the field, he effected one run-out.

Purple Cap – Andre Russell is now tied with Mitchell McClenaghan, as both of them have 13 wickets each in this IPL.

First, win defending – This is the first win for KKR while defending a total in IPL 2016.