It will be a battle of two formidable sides of the season as the two-time former champions will take on KL Rahul’s Lucknow Super Giants in a doubleheader at the Ekana Stadium on Sunday. Both sides have played superlatively well so far this season with three wins from their last five encounters and registered their most recent win over the five-time former champions Mumbai Indians. KKR’s squad has unleashed fury against the top teams this season with the likes of Phil Salt and Sunil Narine in their opening order. Their most expensive player, Mitchell Starc also bounced back to form in style against MI after picking four wickets. On the other hand, LSG are currently struggling to tick their opening duo. Skipper KL Rahul was made to open with Arshin Kulkarni over a grappling Quinton De Kock in the last match. However, the move failed miserably as the youngster departed for a duck. They got another major blow after their ace-pacer Mayank Yadav was sore in the abdomen. Lucknow are currently standing on the doors to the playoffs and would not want to lose the next few encounters. KKR likely XI (if batting first)   Phil Salt (wk), Sunil Narine, Shreyas Iyer (c), Venkatesh Iyer, Angkrish Raghuvanshi, Rinku Singh, Manish Pandey, Andre Russell, Ramandeep Singh, Mitchell Starc, Vaibhav Arora   KKR likely XI (if bowling first) Phil Salt (wk), Sunil Narine, Shreyas Iyer (c), Venkatesh Iyer, Angkrish Raghuvanshi, Rinku Singh, Andre Russell, Ramandeep Singh, Mitchell Starc, Vaibhav Arora, Varun Chakravarthy Impact players: Varun Chakravarthy, Manish Pandey, Anukul Roy LSG likely XI (if batting first) KL Rahul (c/wk), Arshin Kulkarni, Marcus Stoinis, Deepak Hooda, Nicholas Pooran, Ashton Turner, Ayush Badoni, Krunal Pandya, Naveen-Ul-Haq, Mohsin Khan, Ravi Bishnoi LSG likely XI (if bowling first) KL Rahul (c/wk), Arshin Kulkarni, Marcus Stoinis, Deepak Hooda, Nicholas Pooran, Ashton Turner, Krunal Pandya, Naveen-Ul-Haq, Mohsin Khan, Ravi Bishnoi, M Siddharth Impact players: Arshin Kulkarni, Krishnappa Gowtham, M Siddharth Both teams have met each other four times where KKR have the upper hand with 3 wins over LSG. The former also won their recent clash in IPL 2024.