Defending champions Kolkata Knight Riders will now take on a resurgent Punjab Kings in Match No. 44 of IPL 2025. The two teams have come across each other once before in the tournament.
Both teams have played eight matches each so far in the tournament, but Punjab Kings have won five of those matches compared to KKR’s three. Despite this difference in points, PBKS are fifth on the table while KKR are only seventh. More importantly, PBKS have a mathematical opportunity to go to top of the points table even though the victory margins are improbable.
Both teams lost their most recent matches. PBKS went down to RCB in Mullanpur. RCB’s spinners Krunal Pandya and Suyash Sharma put the stops to a cruising Punjab Kings top order. RCB’s death bowling continued their good work and made sure PBKS’ bowlers didn’t have much to work with. Virat Kohli and Devdutt Padikkal didn’t let Phil Salt’s early dismissal deter them and took RCB over the line with fifties.
KKR went down emphatically to GT in their own home. Shubman Gill, Sai Sudharsan and Jos Buttler all put up commanding batting performances to make sure that GT had a winning total at hand, and they did win. No KKR batter apart from Ajinkya Rahane put up a fight as Prasidh Krishna and Rashid Khan led a concerted bowling effort. The loss meant that KKR now have three losses in four home matches in IPL 2025.
The reverse fixture between the two sides saw some records being broken. Harshit Rana wrecked PBKS’s cruising top order and KKR’s spinners took over to dismiss PBKS for just 111 in Mullanpur. At 62/2, it looked like KKR’s game to lose, and that’s exactly what happened. Yuzvendra Chahal triggered a collapse that saw KKR lose six wickets for 17 runs, and there was simply no comeback from there. Andre Russell hit Chahal for 17 runs in an over towards the end, but that didn’t stop PBKS from pulling off the lowest successful defence in IPL history.
The scheduling for this game seems to have been designed with certain events in mind. KKR and PBKS will play each other on 26 April at Kolkata this year. The two teams had met on the same date at the same venue in 2024 as well. On that occasion, PBKS had broken the record for the highest successful chase in T20 history. Jonny Bairstow and Shashank Singh were the architects of a scarcely believable successful chase of 262.
IPL Stats and Records at Eden Gardens, Kolkata
The Eden surface has been under scrutiny, so predicting how it will behave will be a difficult task.
| Matches Played | 97 |
| Matches Won Batting First | 41 |
| Matches Won Batting Second | 56 |
| Matches With No Result | 00 |
| Matches Tied | 00 |
| Average First Innings Score | 169 |
| Highest Team Total | 262 |
| Highest Total Successfully Chased | 262 |
Key Player Battles in KKR vs PBKS, Match 44 of IPL 2025:
1. Andre Russell vs Arshdeep Singh
Russell like almost all of KKR’s batters, has been struggling for form in this tournament. And against Arshdeep, his record isn’t awe-inspiring. Russell has scored 34 runs in 16 balls at a strike rate of 212.50 while being dismissed twice at an average of 17.
2. Shreyas Iyer vs Andre Russell
No bowler has dismissed PBKS’ skipper more often than Andre Russell in the IPL. This fact will be re-assuring to both Russell and KKR. In the IPL, Iyer has scored 63 runs in 54 balls off the Jamaican at a strike rate of 116.67 and has been dismissed five times at an average of 12.60.
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