Kolkata, April 2 (IANS) Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) skipper Ajinkya Rahane won the toss and elected to bowl first against Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) in an Indian Premier League (IPL) 2026 clash at the Eden Gardens in Kolkata on Thursday, with the hosts fielding an unchanged side.

Both KKR and SRH smashed 200-plus totals in their first game of the competition, but ended up on the losing side due to lacklustre bowling performances. “We are going to bowl first. There is always room for improvement, but there were a lot of positives.

“We generally don’t see so much grass, rain around, and that’s why we wanted to bowl first. Not sure about the dew as there’s a breeze going around. 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 skipper Ishan Kishan said left-arm wrist-spin bowling all-rounder Shivang Kumar will make his IPL debut. “We would have bowled first. But batting first, we have to see the ball and play accordingly. We have to come up with the best game for us. You have to go out and do the basics right.

“Only one point I would say is execution, we need to calm down, even if we are not in a very good situation. We will look 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, with the bat as well. 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

–IANS

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