Iyer faces Ferguson dilemma, Rahane expected to go with Moeen-Johnson swap: PBKS vs KKR IPL 2025 Likely XIs
Due to Lockie Ferguson’s injury, PBKS will rejig their overseas lineup as they face KKR in their upcoming IPL 2025 fixture.
It will be a battle between two teams, who will look for some form of solid consistency in their ongoing IPL 2025 season on Tuesday, in Mullanpur. Punjab Kings are currently sixth in the standings, and at the beginning were table-toppers. They were thrashed in their previous fixture by SRH, and will be hoping to bounce back. Meanwhile, Kolkata Knight Riders won their previous game, and are fifth in the standings.
Their respective mid-table positions represent their form at the moment, and they will look to change that. PBKS have lost key pacer Lockie Ferguson due to injury and he is not expected to return this season. Facing his former team, Shreyas Iyer will need to use all his experience, and knowledge about his former teammates could serve as an advantage too.
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In terms of head-to-head, KKR lead 21-12 against PBKS in IPL history, and both sides have won four games each since 2020. Speaking ahead of the match, PBKS fast bowling coach James Hopes said, “We have a lot of players in our middle order that are very good players of spin. So that becomes the match-up that we have to win tomorrow night. And with our bowling attack, we need to get Yuzi [Yuzvendra Chahal] into the game more than we're doing. He's just struggling to get into the game at the moment. Against Chennai, just bowling the one over, a very good over at a very important time. He bowled a very good over, but it's just getting him into the tournament. We're five games in and for us to win the IPL, we're going to need him.”
Due to Ferguson’s injury, PBKS will rejig their overseas lineup. They could bring in Xavier Bartlett or one of pace bowling all-rounders Azmatullah Omarzai and Aaron Hardie. Glenn Maxwell will be key for PBKS, but hasn’t been in good form since 2024. Since IPL 2024, he has only managed 86 runs in 13 innings, at an average of 6.61 and has also registered five ducks.
Anrich Nortje is available for KKR now, but hasn’t played a game yet. Moeen Ali, who faced CSK, could be replaced by Spencer Johnson if KKR go for an extra pace option. Andre Russell could be properly used with the ball vs PBKS, and he also has a good record vs Shreyas Iyer and Marcus Stoinis. Russell has removed the PBKS captain five times in nine innings and Stoinis has been dismissed thrice in five innings.
All eyes will be on KKR spinners Varun Chakaravarthy and Sunil Narine and Moeen Ali (if he plays). KKR spinners have registered the best average (20.62) this season, and also the best economy (6.73).
IPL 2025: PBKS vs KKR Likely XIs (including Impact Player) -
PBKS - Prabhsimran Singh (wk), Priyansh Arya, Shreyas Iyer (captain), Nehal Wadhera, Shashank Singh, Glenn Maxwell, Marcus Stoinis, Azmatullah Omarzai/Aaron Hardie, Marco Jansen, Yuzvendra Chahal, Yash Thakur
KKR - Sunil Narine, Quinton de Kock (wk), Ajinkya Rahane (captain), Angkrish Raghuvanshi, Venkatesh Iyer, Rinku Singh, Andre Russell, Ramandeep Singh, Harshit Rana, Spencer Johnson/Moeen Ali, Varun Chakaravarthy, Vaibhav Arora
