Last Updated on 3 months by Charbel Coorey

IPL 2021 Match 5: KKR vs MI Dream11 Prediction Possible Playing 11 Pitch Report | KKR vs MI Dream11 Prediction Today | Mumbai Indians vs Kolkata Knight Riders Key Players | Chennai Pitch Report

World Cup Winning Captain Eoin Morgan will take on the Most Successful IPL Captain Rohit Sharma for the 5th match of IPL 2021 at Chennai.

Mumbai Indians stood by their usual ritual of losing the first match of the competition. Altogether this turned out to be their ninth straight loss in their IPL openers. Every side wants to start well but their skipper sounded positive in the post-match conference and said ” the most important thing I guess (to win tournaments). Not the first game”.

Chris Lynn struck (49 off 35 balls) on his debut for Mumbai Indians and he might get another chance but some reports in media also suggest Quinton de Kock might return to the playing 11. The only concern for MI will be Lynn’s struggle against Left-arm-Orthodox. He has got out to LAO-type bowling 6 times out of 18 in the IPL. Captain Morgan is someone who believes in a lot of match-ups and he will bring Shakib straight away to stop Lynnsanity. Apart from Lynn, with small contributions from SKY and Kishan, MI made 159.

Defending 159 which is considered a decent total at Chepauk, Mumbai Indians bowlers were quite good. In our first preview, we talked about how Mumbai Indians surprises the opponent with a surprise pick for their opening clashing. Marco Jansen was their trump card this time around which got them 2 wickets. Along with Jasprit Bumrah, MI still could not defend it, although the match went down to the wire.

On the other side of the coin, Captain Morgan led KKR showed intent from word go, and ran riots on SRH bowlers. Nitish Rana (80 off 56 balls) relished the opportunity and scored his 4th Fifty in his 6 matches as an opener in the IPL. Rahul Tripathi (53 off 29 balls) scored his 6th IPL fifty, a small cameo from DK (22 off 9 balls) helped reach KKR their highest total (187) against SRH.

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Key Players to Watch/Key Stats

Mumbai Indians:

• Rohit Sharma – No one loves smashing KKR bowlers more than the Hitman. The MI Captain has 939 runs against them at an average of 47 from his 26 innings. He is 61 runs short of 1000 runs against them which also adds to the case of being the Top Captaincy Choice in Grand Leagues for this match.
• Chris Lynn– Lynn was at his brutal best in his debut match for MI. He was part of the KKR camp earlier and would relish the opportunity to play against them. 
• Quinton de Kock- Quinny is coming on the back of some good knocks in the ODI’s against Pakistan. Against KKR he has an average of 21.2 with 170 runs from 9 innings. He has struggled more in 1st innings against them in 6 innings he has 62 runs from 10.3.
• Suryakumar Yadav – SKY looked good against RCB. He was also part of the KKR camp earlier and has done well against them. In his 6 innings against them, he averages 44.8 with 224 runs from his 6 innings. 
• Ishan Kishan – Kishan has played twice against KKR and scored 66 runs. He started his IPL 2021 campaign from how he left off in IPL 2020. 
• Hardik Pandya –  Flamboyant Hardik has destroyed KKR left, right and center. In 9 innings against them, he has 284 runs at an unbelievable average of 71. Add to that 11 wickets and it makes him a choice of VC in grand leagues. The only concern is that he did not bowl in the last match.
• Jasprit Bumrah –  Bumrah has 12 scalps from his 12 matches against KKR. He has been more economical against them and bowled 45.4% dot balls against them.
• Trent Boult – Boult has 7 wickets from 4 games against KKR.
• Rahul Chahar – Chahar has 5 wickets from his 4 games. Like Bumrah he also has a massive dot bowl percentage of 46.2 against them. We expect the Chennai deck to offer more assistance to him and hopefully, that brings more wickets as well.

Kolkata Knight Riders:

• Nitish Rana – Rana thumped SRH bowlers all over the park and brought his 12th IPL Fifty. He was the most impressive player from the KKR camp. He has played against MI in the past and playing against them he has 107 runs at 21.4.  Rana is coming back from a good domestic season and on the back of that, he will look to improve his number against his previous team.
• Shubman Gill – Gill started brilliantly but soon fell into Rashid’s trap. Against MI he has 120 runs from his 5 innings. He will be a good pick in this pick-all leagues.
• Rahul Tripathi – After an impressive innings vs SRH (53 off 29 balls), it will be interesting to see how turns up against MI. In 6 innings against them, he just has 65 runs at an average of 10.8. This is his worst figure in the IPL. Having said that, dropping him in small leagues could prove costly.
• Eoin Morgan – Morgan did not do much in the first match. Against MI he has 118 runs from 7 matches at an average of 23.6. 
• Andre Russell – Russell has 174 runs and 6 wickets from 9 innings against MI. Russell did not have a game time for a brief amount of period and we believe it will take a couple of games for him to get back into the groove.
• Dinesh Kartik – DK came to bat at no.7 which shows that KKR management has made their mind to use him as a finisher. He only makes a case for Grand Leagues spot in 1-2 teams.
• Shakib Al Hasan – Shakib was good with the balll in the opening match. Against MI he has not enjoyed much success in the past. He has 93 runs against MI at an average of 11.6 from his 9 innings. He has 12 wickets in 11 matches vs MI.
• Prasidh Krishna-  Krishna was impressive with the ball and got Warner cheaply with a beauty of a delivery to set up the match for his side. Against MI he has 2 wickets from his 4 games but he is a mightly confident bowler after his recent success and should be among the wickets again.

Stats & Facts

• Overall 27 | MI Won 21 | KKR Won 6
• MI dominates KKR both while batting first and second.
• In the last match, KKR completed their 100th win in the IPL.
• Kieron Pollard has a modest record vs KKR. He has scored 246 runs in 16 innings at an average of 27.33 and SR 120.

Predicted Playing XI

Quinton de Kock is out of quarantine and is expected to replace Chris Lynn in this match.

Mumbai Indians: 1. Rohit Sharma (c) 2. Quinton de Kock (wk), 3. Suryakumar Yadav, 4. Ishan Kishan, 5. Hardik Pandya, 6. Kieron Pollard, 7. Krunal Pandya, 8. Rahul Chahar/Jayant Yadav, 9. Marco Jansen, 10. Trent Boult, 11. Jasprit Bumrah

Kolkata Knight Riders: 1. Shubman Gill, 2. Nitish Rana, 3. Rahul Tripathi, 4. Andre Russell, 5. Eoin Morgan (c), 6. Dinesh Karthik (wk), 7. Shakib Al Hasan, 8. Pat Cummins, 9. Prasidh Krishna, 10. Harbhajan Singh, 11. Varun Chakravarthy

Chepauk Chennai Pitch Report and Weather Conditions

Murali Karthik in his pitch report said “The square boundaries are 60 and 70 meters long, so the spinners might struggle here. This is a dry wicket, a lot of open patches, it’s not fully even either. Is there going to be a lot of dew today? There was a little bit last time, and just enough to bother the bowlers. It’ll be interesting what the captains will be interested in after winning the toss – they wanted to bat last in the previous game. When you’re closer, there’s less grass, and it’s very dry – black soil surface. It’ll be important how the spinners bowl, it’ll be difficult for them in the powerplay given the short square boundaries.”

A similar deck is expected for this match as well. The weather forecast suggests Tuesday will be hot and humid with temp around 32-36°C.

Dream11 Prediction

Option 1:

Option 2:

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Match Prediction

Mumbai Indians should be fine after losing their first match and look to open their campaign against KKR. MI to win, off the back of their amazing record vs KKR.

Written by Shekhar Singh. Follow Shekhar on Twitter today.