Raipur, May 13 (IANS) Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) have won the toss and elected to bowl first against Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) in match 57 of the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2206 at the Shaheed Veer Narayan Singh International Stadium in Raipur on Wednesday.

The toss was delayed by 1.5 hours due to rain and a wet outfield, but there’s no loss of overs. A win would take RCB to the top of the points table and closer to a top-two finish in the points table. KKR, currently on a four-game winning streak, need a victory to continue their impressive turnaround and stay alive in the race to the playoffs.

After winning the toss, RCB skipper Rajat Patidar said Venkatesh Iyer has come in for Romario Shepherd, while Suyash Sharma also missed out, and Jacob Duffy came in. “I think it’s a similar wicket that we played last match, so I think it will behave in the same way. And it should be pretty good also, hard surface, but we’ll try to keep them under pressure while chasing.

“I don’t think so. As I feel, both the wickets are pretty much the same, and there must be a variable bounce, but let’s see how it goes. I think it was a tight match (vs MI), but I think it was a good game for us, and everyone has a lot of confidence after the way we played the last game,” he added.

“It was a tight one, but everyone is looking good and looking forward to it. Every game is important. We are not looking at the table, but we are just focusing more on playing good cricket,” he said.

KKR captain Ajinkya Rahane said wrist-spinner Varun Chakaravarthy misses out due to a niggle, and left-arm pacer Saurabh Dubey has been handed an IPL debut cap and will come on the field during their bowling innings.

“We wanted to bowl first as well. Absolutely, yes (we have a chance to be in the playoffs). I mean, the last four games have been really good for us as a team. Everyone started to do really well. For us, sometimes the game tells you to keep things really simple. For us, it’s all about taking one game at a time, keeping it really simple.

“Then, as I said, it’s all about respecting the opponents and winning those small moments. So, just really looking forward to the game. I think it’s just a belief, probably. As I said, we started winning those small, small moments. This format is all about that.

“One over here and there can change the game. I thought we’ve been bowling really well as a bowling unit. But, you know, winning those small moments in this format is really important. Every single game is really important,” he said.

Playing XIs:

Kolkata Knight Riders: Finn Allen, Ajinkya Rahane (captain), Angkrish Raghuvanshi (wk), Cameron Green, Rinku Singh, Manish Pandey, Rovman Powell, Sunil Narine, Anukul Roy, Kartik Tyagi, and Vaibhav Arora

Impact substitutes: Saurabh Dubey, Ramandeep Singh, Tejasvi Singh Dahiya, Navdeep Saini, and Tim Seifert

Royal Challengers Bengaluru: Jacob Bethell, Virat Kohli, Rajat Patidar (captain), Jitesh Sharma (wk), Krunal Pandya, Tim David, Venkatesh Iyer, Rasikh Salam, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Josh Hazlewood, and Jacob Duffy

Impact substitutes: Devdutt Padikkal, Jordan Cox, Mangesh Yadav, Swapnil Singh, and Romario Shepherd

–IANS

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