KKR take on MI in a must-win clash for the home team today
Kolkata must beat Mumbai or else it would be curtains for them in this campaign
Today's weather has predicted slight chance of rain
Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) will have 'win or bust' mantra on their minds when they take on already-eliminated Mumbai Indians (MI) in their bid to keep their play-off hopes alive at Eden Gardens, on Wednesday, May 20. A defeat would bring curtains to their campaign and mark a back-to-back disappointment for KKR franchise under Ajinkya Rahane.
However, a win would not guarantee KKR a play-off spot. Their chances were hampered by RR's victory over LSG and now must depend on other results to go their way.
KKR must hope LSG beat PBKS on Saturday. If Shreyas Iyer-led side win, then Kolkata's final league game against DC would become irrelevant.
Royal Challengers Bengaluru, Gujarat Titans and Sunrisers Hyderabad are through to the play-offs, while LSG and MI are out. It's a four-horse race now between KKR, DC, PBKS and RR for the fourth and final spot in the play-offs.
As for Mumbai Indians, they would have nothing but pride at stake. Jasprit Bumrah led his side out in their previous game and it remains to be seen whether the management stick with the pacer or decide to rotate.
KKR vs MI, IPL 2026: Head-to-Head Record
Matches played: 36
KKR won: 11
MI won: 25
KKR vs MI, IPL 2026: Kolkata's Hourly Weather
As per AccuWeather, there is a slight chance of rain in the evening period with 51% chance. Temperatures could vary from 34 degrees Celsius to 30 degrees Celsius.
What If Today's Match Gets Washed Out
There is 50% chance of rain in today's match for the first couple of hours, and if, unfortunately, the match gets washed out, then what will be its impact on KKR's playoff chances as MI are already out of the tournament?
KKR are currently placed at the 8th spot in the points table with 11 points in 12 matches and a NRR of -0.038. There are two scenarios from here through which they can qualify for the playoffs:
i) They can at most go to 15 points if they win their remaining two matches. For getting a sure shot berth in the playoffs, they'll need both RR (14 points) and PBKS (13 points) to lose their last league matches.
ii) If KKR's match today gets rained off, then the situation gets tricky for them, as then they can go to a maximum of 14 points. In this case, they'll want both RR and PBKS to lose their remaining matches and then KKR will need to win their last league match with a significant margin to get past RR's NRR.
KKR vs MI, IPL 2026: Squads
KKR: Ajinkya Rahane (c), Finn Allen, Angkrish Raghuvanshi (wk), Cameron Green, Rinku Singh, Rovman Powell, Manish Pandey, Sunil Narine, Anukul Roy, Vaibhav Arora, Kartik Tyagi, Saurabh Dubey, Ramandeep Singh, Tejasvi Dahiya, Navdeep Saini, Tim Seifert, Varun Chakaravarthy, Blessing Muzarabani, Matheesha Pathirana, Umran Malik, Rahul Tripathi, Sarthak Ranjan, Prashant Solanki, Daksh Kamra
MI: Ryan Rickelton (wk), Rohit Sharma, Tilak Varma, Suryakumar Yadav (c), Naman Dhir, Will Jacks, Corbin Bosch, Deepak Chahar, Jasprit Bumrah, AM Ghazanfar, Raghu Sharma, Mayank Rawat, Robin Minz, Shardul Thakur, Trent Boult, Ashwani Kumar, Keshav Maharaj, Sherfane Rutherford, Mayank Markande, Danish Malewar, Mohammed Salahuddin Izhar, Hardik Pandya, Krish Bhagat
