Mumbai Indians vs Kolkata Knight Riders Prediction - IPL 2022 Match 56: Who Will Win?

Mumbai Indians Team Preview

With one of the worst starts to any Indian Premier League tournaments, the Mumbai Indians are finally enjoying some success. Having experienced eight back-to-back losses, fans were seriously wondering if they were ever going to see them open their account on the leader board. Finally, two matches have gone their way, and a win here would at least give them a hattrick, even though their chances of making the Play-Offs have gone. They currently have a Net Run Rate of -0.725: almost a whole point lower than the Lucknow Super Giants who are currently number ones.

In match 51, the bottom-of-the-table Indians faced off with the top-of-the-table, the Gujarat Titans. A win for the Titans seemed in the bag, so to see the Indians successfully defending their score and winning with a tiny margin of 5 runs was truly an incredibly scene to behold.

Ishan Kishan and skipper Rohit Sharma were back on form and got the squad off to a strong start. Both players were just a few runs shy of reaching a half century with Kishan finishing with 45 off 28 balls, and Sharma with 43 off 28. The middle order kept everything ticking over with Suryakymar Yadav scoring 13 runs from 11 balls, and Tilak Varma scoring 21 runs from 16 balls. Some longer stints here could have given them the runs they needed for a more comfortable victory.

Keiron Pollard struggled in his batting spell, scoring just 4 runs from 14 balls, for a truly disappointing strike rate of 28.57. However, with the bad comes the good. Tim David was included in the playing XI finally, and he certainly put on a fantastic performance finishing with 44 runs from 21 balls. Scoring four 6’s and two 4’s with a final strike rate of 209.52, has it been a mistake to have left him out of the playing squad for so long? His spectacular efforts deservedly won him the Player of the Match award.

Focusing on the bowlers, Daniel Sams is certainly finding his footing. In his three overs spell, he conceded 18 runs for an economy of 6.00 - the most economical score of the team. Pollard ended his two overs spell with 1/13 for an economy of 6.50, while Murugan Ashwin finished with 2/29 (7.25). The bowling side played as a unit and were all conservative with conceding runs. Jasprit Bumrah was the most expensive player, and the only one to have an economy over 10.0. Bumrah finished his four overs spell on 0/48.

Now, time for some statistics that could be useful if you are IPL betting on the match today. Yadav stands at the top with the best batting average of the team at 43.28. Varma follows closely behind with 41.0. Varma has scored the most runs of the squad (328) and also has the best bowling economy figure of 6.50. While both Yadav and Varma didn’t showcase any exceptional performances during their last match, we are hoping to see some great playing similar to that against the Rajasthan Royals in match 44.

Kolkata Knight Riders Team Preview

Coming into this season as runners up of 2021 tournament, the Kolkata Knight Riders are having a tough time. With four wins from 11 matches, it’s safe to say that the Knight Riders are still not showing enough consistency within their performances. They have just three matches left, which could net them 6 points to finish on 14. Their fate of entering the Play-Offs hangs in the balance: not only will they need the three remaining wins; their fate will also rest on the results of other matches going their way. Unfortunately, their Net Run Rate score isn’t going their way. Currently on -0.304, it’s one of the worst in the tournament, and will absolutely work against them if more than one team tie for the last Play-Off place.

Their last match against the Lucknow Super Giants was a huge defeat by 75 runs, which is the second largest margin of the tournament behind the Chennai Super Kings’ massive win of 91 runs against the Delhi Capitals. The Knight Riders were bundled out after reaching 101 in 14.3 overs. The Knight Riders won the toss and decided to bowl first. However, after Shivam Mavi conceded 50 runs in his four overs spell, and only managing to take one wicket, the bowling performance of the squad wouldn’t have been able to recover that well. Harshit Rana was more expensive than Mavi, finishing 0/27 after two overs for an economy of 13.50. Sunil Narine was the most economical at 5.00 finishing 1/20, followed by Tim Southee with 1/28, and Andre Russell with 2/22. All in all, many runs were leaked, and the squad wasn’t able to restrict the Lucknow Super Giants well enough.

The top order failed to get going, and the Knight Riders will need to come up with a plan to get better in the Powerplay. This is the area where they have experienced the most damage, so finding a way to improve this is critical. Baba Indrajith was the first casualty and was dismissed in the first over failing to score any runs after 6 balls. Aaron Finch and skipper Shreyas Iyer were quickly dismissed after, having only added 20 runs from 23 balls.

Moving into the middle order, it was only Andre Russell that had a decent performance but, of course, a game of cricket cannot be won by one person. Russell managed to get five 6’s and three 4’s in his batting spell, reaching a total of 45 runs from 19 balls for an impressive strike rate of 236.84. The remaining batters crumbled quickly, with Anukul Roy and Tim Southee both dismissed without scoring any runs. Shivam Mavi scored a single run off two balls, while Rana scored two runs off one ball.

Almost a month ago, in match 14, the Kolkata Knight Riders won against the Mumbai Indians by 5 wickets. Now, the Knight Riders will seriously need to make some improvements to see a victory, especially after the change of fate for the Indians. Pat Cummins was the star of that match, scoring the fastest 50 in IPL history. Cummins has missed the last four matches and it’s not certain if he will join.

If you are hoping to make an IPL prediction for either the top batsman or top bowler, we will share some statistics to help with your decision. Russell is certainly going from strength to strength and has the best batting average of the team at 38.85, which is closely followed by Singh at 35.33. Iyer has scored the most runs at 330 and could be ready to bounce back after a disappointing previous match result. While Narine is the most economical bowler of the tournament (5.22), Russell’s bowling figure of 4/5 is enough to place him in the fourth spot. Be sure to check out the leading IPL betting sites to find a range of interesting markets, if top batsmen and bowler aren’t appealing.

Toss Prediction

As the IPL 2022 continues, we are seeing that the toss is having less and less of a grip on the outcome of the game. In the first few weeks, the captains to win the toss and bat second were enjoying an advantage while chasing. As we enter the seventh week of the tournament, this is slowly changing. In the last seven games, six teams have managed to successfully defend their score after being invited to bat first.

Only five teams in the tournament to date have elected to bat first, with the common factor being they were all afternoon matches. The action of match 56 kicks off from 19:30 IST, so we are quite confident with our toss prediction to say that the captain to win the toss will very likely choose to bat second.

Pitch Conditions

We are back at the DY Patil Stadium after a particularly exciting match on Sunday between the Chennai Super Kings and the Delhi Capitals. The 2022 season average first inning score at this wicket is the lowest out of the four venues at 167.5, with an average first innings winning score of 184.5. The chasing team has won 60% of the time, with all but two captains electing to field first at this location. The DY Patil Stadium has an average powerplay score of 44.1, while for the average death overs score, it’s 49.3. The red-soil pitch typically aids pace and bounce, and following Sunday’s match, Super Kings’ Moeen Ali remarked that the pitch assisted the spinners.

The Mumbai Indians have played three times at this location, scoring 170, 161, and 155 to give them an average score of 162. The average runs per 6 balls faced for these three matches are 8.5, 8.32 ad 7.75 respectively. On the other hand, the Kolkata Knight Riders have played here twice scoring 148 and 128 for an average of 138. 7.4 and 6.79 are the respective average scores per 6 balls faced.

The weather continues to be warm and humid, with the ‘real-feel’ temperature forecasted to be 43C and 82% humidity. As this is an evening game, the threat of dew is very likely.