Nitish Rana and Sanju Samson at the toss (Pic Credit: Sportzpics)
Kolkata Knight Riders have included Anukul Roy in the starting XI in place of Vaibhav Arora.
Rajasthan Royals Captain Sanju Samson won the toss and elected to bowl first against Kolkata Knight Riders in their Indian Premier League match at the Eden Gardens, Kolkata. Samson’s luck with the toss continued as predicted by the flip of the coin but this time he chose to bowl first.
The Royals have made some changes in their playing XI after suffering defeats in the last three matches. Trent Boult returns to the XI and replaces Kuldeep Yadav, while KM Asif replaces Murugan Ashwin.
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While Kolkata Knight Riders included Anukul Roy in the starting XI in place of Vaibhav Arora.
Samson suggested that they needed to change their approach after the defeat in the last few matches.
He said, ‘We will bowl first here. It’s a long tournament, need to adapt according to strengths and weaknesses. Few changes for us – Boult comes in for Kuldeep Yadav, KM Asif comes in for Murugan Ashwin. Root will bat at number 4. It’s a long tournament, we’ve had some tough games for the bowlers, morale is high, close defeats not easy to forget but we need to move on,” Samson said at the toss.
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Meanwhile, Rana revealed the reason behind including an extra spinner in the playing XI for Thursday’s clash.
“I think we are getting the type of pitches that we want. We have to play good cricket, take it one game at a time and get 2 points. One change for us – Anukul Roy comes in for Vaibhav Arora. It looks like the pitch is dry, they haven’t added much water, so we are feeding that extra spinner and adding some depth to the batting,” Rana said.
Kolkata Knight Riders (Playing XI): Rahmanullah Gurbaz(w), Jason Roy, Venkatesh Iyer, Nitish Rana(c), Andre Russell, Rinku Singh, Sunil Narine, Shardul Thakur, Anukul Roy, Harshit Rana, Varun Chakaravarthy
KKR Impact Sub: Suyyash Sharma, Vaibhav Arora, N Jagadeesan, Umesh Yadav, Lockie Ferguson
Rajasthan Royals (Playing XI): Yashasvi Jaiswal, Jos Buttler, Sanju Samson (w/c), Joe Root, Dhruv Jurel, Shimron Hetmyer, Ravichandran Ashwin, Trent Boult, Sandeep Sharma, KM Asif, Yuzvendra Chahal
RR Effect Sub: Donavon Ferreira, Devdutt Padikkal, Riyan Parag, Murugan Ashwin and Navdeep Saini
