Big picture - Can Brook rekindle Eden memories?

Two misfiring teams that currently make up the bottom half of the points table clash to keep their IPL campaigns alive. Kolkata Knight Riders need to win every game from here on to get to 16 points, which is generally considered a safe number. Sunrisers Hyderabad also have just six points at this stage but they have the cushion of an extra game in hand and the home advantage to boot for Thursday's game.

Another thing that's common is that both sides have struggled with their opening combinations. KKR have tried six pairs so far, the most among all teams, while Sunrisers have shunted Harry Brook and Abhishek Sharma up and down based on conditions and match-ups.

When two sides that have very little to lose compete, there's often an inherent sense of freedom. And that could make this a compelling contest.

Sunrisers Hyderabad: WLLLLW (last five matches, most recent first) Kolkata Knight Riders: LWLLL

Team news - Shardul available, Umesh to miss out again

Sunrisers will possibly stick to what they did in the previous game - using T Natarajan as an additional seamer and swapping him with Abdul Samad in the batting innings.

Sunrisers Hyderabad (probable XII): 1 Mayank Agarwal, 2 Abhishek Sharma, 3 Rahul Tripathi, 4 Aiden Markram (capt), 5 Harry Brook, 6 Heinrich Klaasen (wk), 7 Abdul Samad, 8 Akeal Hosein, 9 Mayank Markande, 10 Bhuvneshwar Kumar, 11 Umran Malik, 12 T Natarajan

Roy should slot back in to open with Rahmanullah Gurbaz, who is likely to take over the wicketkeeping gloves from N Jagadeesan. Jagadeesan may be subbed out for either Harshit Rana or Vaibhav Arora when they bowl.

Kolkata Knight Riders (probable XII): 1 Jason Roy, 2 Rahmanullah Gurbaz (wk), 3 N Jagadeesan/Mandeep Singh, 4 Venkatesh Iyer, 5 Nitish Rana, 6 Rinku Singh, 7 Andre Russell, 8 Shardul Thakur, 9 Sunil Narine, 10 Harshit Rana, 11 Varun Chakravarthy, 12 Vaibhav Arora

Stats that matter - should Russell bat higher up?

Hyderabad has been lashed by intermittent showers over the past three days. Cloudy skies are expected on Thursday. That means the surface, which has been under the covers for much of the build-up to the game, may have some moisture that fast bowlers could exploit. As such, spinners have been slightly more successful at this venue this season: an economy of 7.70 and strike rate of 19.3, compared to 8.18 and 19.7 respectively for fast bowlers.