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Kolkata Knight Riders look to ride over prosaic KXIP (Match Preview)
Kolkata: In a repeat of last year’s final, a confident Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) will look to continue their rollicking form at home as they lock horns with Kings XI Punjab in the Indian Premier League (IPL) at the Eden Gardens here on Saturday.
The Eden has been a fortress so far this season for KKR with three back-to-back wins and with mystery tweaker Sunil Narine back in the side, the home team will believe they can outdo the opposition four times in a row.
All three departments for the Knights have stood up and delivered in the last few matches, especially the bowling which has been a hard nut to crack. Even the Delhi Daredevils batsmen found the Kolkata bowlers difficult as they lost by 13 runs chasing a target of 172 here on Thursday.
The win took the Knights to third in the standings with 13 points from 11 games.
On the other hand, Kings XI’s campaign has looked like a punctured tyre that had to traverse through a road with spiked strips. Last year’s runners-up have only been a shadow of themselves in this edition with two wins from 10 games.
Hefty Jamaican Chris Gayle of Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) did not do them much good either in their last encounter as he smashed the hapless Punjab bowlers en route to 117. In reply to RCB’s 226/3, the Kings could only muster a dismal 88 before being bowled out in 13.4 overs.
The head-to-head encounters also tilt the odds in favour of the Knights who have clinched 10 out of 16 games. But in a Twenty20 game, the tables can turn within a matter of minutes and Kings XI will hope it does, especially with quality foreign willowers in the side who have been misfiring consistently for the last few weeks. But with spin-twins Brad Hogg and Sunil Narine bowling in tandem, it will be difficult belting them away.
The only thing that has worked for the Kings XI are their two bowlers up front Sandeep Sharma and Anureet Singh. Both have been able to pick wickets regularly. However, their mettle will be tested when they come up against the likes of Robin Uthappa and Yusuf Pathan who have been in quite brilliant form off late.
The squads:
Kolkata Knight Riders: Gautam Gambhir (captain), Sunil Narine, Robin Uthappa, Piyush Chawla, Yusuf Pathan, Umesh Yadav, Manish Pandey, Suryakumar Yadav, Veer Pratap Singh, Kuldeep Yadav, Sumit Narwal, Sheldon Jackson, Aditya Garhwal, K.C. Cariappa, Vaibhav Rawal, Manish Pandey, Morne Morkel, Pat Cummins, Ryan ten Doeschate, Andre Russell, Brad Hogg, Azhar Mahmood, Johan Botha.
Kings XI Punjab: George Bailey (captain), Virender Sehwag, Murali Vijay, Wriddhiman Saha, Shaun Marsh, David Miller, Glenn Maxwell, Rishi Dhawan, Manan Vohra, Gurkeerat Singh Mann, Thisara Perera, Mitchell Johnson, Anureet Singh, Karanveer Singh, Sandeep Sharma, Shivam Sharma, Parvinder Awana, Akshar Patel, Yogesh Gowalkar, Beuran Hendricks, Shardul Thakur.
International online casino Casino Days has published a report sharing their internal data on what types and brands of devices are used to play on the platform by users from the South Asian region.
Such aggregate data analyses allow the operator to optimise their website for the brands and models of devices people are actually using.
The insights gained through the research also help Casino Days tailor their services based on the better understanding of their clients and their needs.
Desktops and Tablets Lose the Battle vs Mobile
The primary data samples analysed by Casino Days reveal that mobile connections dominate the market in South Asia and are responsible for a whopping 96.6% of gaming sessions, while computers and tablets have negligible shares of 2.9% and 0.5% respectively.
The authors of the study point out that historically, playing online casino was exclusively done on computers, and attribute thе major shift to mobile that has unfolded over time to the wide spread of cheaper smartphones and mobile data plans in South Asia.
“Some of the reasons behind this massive difference in device type are affordability, technical advantages, as well as cheaper and more obtainable internet plans for mobiles than those for computers,” the researchers comment.
Xiaomi and Vivo Outperform Samsung, Apple Way Down in Rankings
Chinese brands Xiaomi and Vivo were used by 21.9% and 20.79% of Casino Days players from South Asia respectively, and together with the positioned in third place with a 18.1% share South Korean brand Samsung dominate the market among real money gamers in the region.
Cupertino, California-based Apple is way down in seventh with a user share of just 2.29%, overshadowed by Chinese brands Realme (11.43%), OPPO (11.23%), and OnePlus (4.07%).
Huawei is at the very bottom of the chart with a tiny share just below the single percent mark, trailing behind mobile devices by Motorola, Google, and Infinix.
The data on actual phone usage provided by Casino Days, even though limited to the gaming parts of the population of South Asia, paints a different picture from global statistics on smartphone shipments by vendors.
Apple and Samsung have been sharing the worldwide lead for over a decade, while current regional leader Xiaomi secured their third position globally just a couple of years ago.
Striking Android Dominance among South Asian Real Money Gaming Communities
The shifted market share patterns of the world’s top smartphone brands in South Asia observed by the Casino Days research paper reveal a striking dominance of Android devices at the expense of iOS-powered phones.
On the global level, Android enjoys a comfortable lead with a sizable 68.79% share which grows to nearly 79% when we look at the whole continent of Asia. The data on South Asian real money gaming communities suggests that Android’s dominance grows even higher and is north of the 90% mark.
Among the major factors behind these figures, the authors of the study point to the relative affordability of and greater availability of Android devices in the region, especially when manufactured locally in countries like India and Vietnam.
“And, with influencers and tech reviews putting emphasis on Android devices, the choice of mobile phone brand and OS becomes easy; Android has a much wider range of products and caters to the Asian online casino market in ways that Apple can’t due to technical limitations,” the researchers add.
The far better integration achieved by Google Pay compared to its counterpart Apple Pay has also played a crucial role in shaping the existing smartphone market trends.
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