Kolkata, April 2 – Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) captain Ajinkya Rahane won the toss and decided to bowl first against Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) in an Indian Premier League (IPL) 2026 match at Eden Gardens in Kolkata on Thursday, with the hosts fielding their regular team.
Both KKR and SRH had scored over 200 runs in their first game, but lost due to poor bowling performances. “We will bowl first. There is always room for improvement, but we saw a lot of positives.
“We usually don't see much grass or rain, which is why we wanted to bowl first. I'm not sure about the dew, as there is a breeze. It should be good for 40 overs. He (Cam Green) is doing everything he needs to do. He should bowl soon,” said Rahane after winning the toss.
SRH captain Ishan Kishan said left-arm wrist-spin all-rounder Shivang Kumar will make his IPL debut. “We would have bowled first. But batting first, we need to assess the ball and play accordingly. We need to come up with the best strategy for us. You need to go out and do the basics right.
“The only thing I would say is execution, we need to calm down, even if we are in a difficult situation. We will try to keep it simple in this game. I don't know yet, but he (Pat Cummins) should be ready soon; he makes a big difference, both with the bat and the ball. Shivang comes in to keep the wicket-taking options open. He has bowled well in the nets, and we are giving him an opportunity,” he said.
Playing XIs:
Kolkata Knight Riders: Ajinkya Rahane (captain), Cameron Green, Angkrish Raghuvanshi (wk), Rinku Singh, Ramandeep Singh, Anukul Roy, Sunil Narine, Varun Chakaravarthy, Vaibhav Arora, Kartik Tyagi, and Blessing Muzarabani
Impact Substitutes: Finn Allen, Manish Pandey, Tejasvi Dahiya, Saurabh Dubey, and Rovman Powell
Sunrisers Hyderabad: Abhishek Sharma, Travis Head, Ishan Kishan (captain & wk), Heinrich Klaasen, Aniket Verma, Nitish Kumar Reddy, Salil Arora, Harsh Dubey, Shivang Kumar, Jaydev Unadkat, and David Payne
Impact Substitutes: Harshal Patel, Liam Livingstone, Eshan Malinga, R Smaran, and Sakib Hussain
