Who will win GL vs KKR, IPL 2017 3rd Match?
Gujarat Lions will take on the Kolkata Knight Riders in the third fixture of the Indian Premier League 2017. The match is scheduled to be played on April 7 at the Saurashtra Cricket Association Stadium, Rajkot. Live action will begin at 8 PM local time.
GL vs KKR 3rd Match: Where to watch/Live streaming
TV channels: Set Max, Sony Six, Sky Sports
Live streaming: Bet365, Hotstar, Star Sports
Toss Prediction
Out of the five matches played at the Saurashtra Cricket Association Stadium last season, four were won by the side batting second. Also since the wicket is expected to remain good for batting throughout the game, the toss-winning team will probably want to chase here. We suggest betting on Gujarat Lions if they bat second as they have won two of their three games at this ground while batting second.
Read on for team previews, latest odds, betting tips and prediction for GL vs KKR, IPL 2017 3rd match....
GL Team News & Playing 11
Team News
In-form English batsman Jason Roy is the team's most expensive signing this year. Bad news is that there are a couple of injuries in the side. Ravindra Jadeja has not yet recovered from his finger injury and will be not be a part of the playing 11 for this match. Dwayne Bravo too needs some more time before he can get back to action.
Key Players
The opening pair of Brendon McCullum and Jason Roy along with skipper Suresh Raina form the pillars of the team's batting. Raina scored the most runs for Gujarat Lions in the previous edition of the Indian Premier League while Roy recently had a great tour of India. Gujarat Lions will look to Andrew Tye for picking up the early wickets against the KKR. The pacer took three wickets in his previous T20 international against Sri Lanka in February.
Recent Form
Gujarat Lions were outstanding in their first IPL season last year. They topped the pool at the end of the league stage with nine wins and five losses from 14 matches. They were beaten by Royal Challengers Bangalore and Sunrisers Hyderabad in the respective qualifiers and could not reach the finals.
GL Predicted Playing 11
-
Suresh Raina (c), Brendon McCullum, Jason Roy, Dinesh Karthik (wk), Andrew Tye, Ishan Kishan, Praveen Kumar, James Faulkner, Shivil Kaushik, Nathu Singh, Dhawal Kulkarni.
KKR Team News & Playing 11
Team News
Andre Russell's absence from the Indian Premier League will be a big worry for the Knight Riders as the West Indian allrounder has been slammed a year-long doping violation ban. He has been replaced by New Zealand allrounder Colin de Grandhomme. Umesh Yadav will also be sitting out due to a lower back injury.
Key Players
The team's batting will rely largely on their skipper Gautam Gambhir who is their leading run-scorer in the Indian Premier League. Last year, he was among the top five batsmen with five fifties in the season. Robin Uthappa and Yusuf Pathan have also done well with the bat and KKR will have high hopes on them. Shakib Al Hasan will have a role to play, not only with the bat, but with the bat as well. He together with Sunil Narine who is KKR's highest wicket-taker in the tournament are expected to get good support from the pitch.
Recent Form
Kolkata Knight Riders won 8 of their 14 league matches last season, edging past Mumbai Indians to occupy the fourth spot on the points table and advance through to the playoffs. Their run in the competition however came to an end as they faced defeat at the hands of Sunrisers Hyderabad in the eliminator.
KKR Predicted Playing 11
-
Gautam Gambhir (c), Robin Uthappa (wk), Manish Pandey, Suryakumar Yadav, Shakib Al Hasan, Yusuf Pathan, Chris Woakes, Piyush Chawla, Sunil Narine, Kuldeep Yadav, Trent Boult.
Team Form in Last Five Matches (most recent first)
Gujarat Lions: L L W W L
Kolkata Knight Riders: L W L L W
GL vs KKR Head to Head
Kolkata Knight Riders and Gujarat Lions will be facing each other for the first time at the Saurashtra Cricket Association Stadium in Rajkot. The two teams however have met twice before in the Indian Premier League 2016 with the latter emerging victorious on both occasions. Their most recent encounter came at Kanpur where the Lions registered a comfortable six-wicket win.
GL vs KKR Betting Odds
Gujarat Lions made their first IPL appearance last year and though they could not make it past the playoffs, it was still a performance of which they could be proud of. Since they have retained the bulk of their squad, bookmakers are expecting another solid performance from them this year as well. 1xbet and bet365 have GL as favorites to win this match at 1.86 and 1.72 respectively. Kolkata Knight Riders are a well balanced unit and they have made some pretty good purchases at the auction. But despite of this, the two-time champions will start as outsiders at 2.14 with betfair and 2.10 with bet365.
GL vs KKR Prediction
Kolkata Knight Riders lost both their matches against Gujarat Lions last year and this will surely give the latter an upper hand heading into this game. In fact, both of those games were won quite convincingly which will add to the team's confidence.
KKR have not played a game at this ground which is another thing that might work in favor of GL who will be playing on their home ground. They played five matches here last season and so will be more familiar with the conditions. Taking these factors into account, we predict Gujarat Lions to win this game. But having said that, Kolkata Knight Riders are by no means a weaker team and should only be written off at one's own peril.
Final Verdict: Back Gujarat Lions to beat Kolkata Knight Riders in the 3rd match of IPL 2017 at 1.86 with 1xbet and 1.72 with bet365.
Leave Your Comment
We do our best to give you most accurate & useful match predictions and would love to hear from you. Let us know if we need to improve. Share your own predictions for the matches. Let's talk: