Knight Riders bowl; Umesh and Ishant return
.Toss: Kolkata Knight Riders chose to bowl v Kings XI Punjab
Kolkata Knight Riders captain Gautam Gambhir chose to bowl in their first home game of the season against Kings XI Punjab at the Eden Gardens. In the 2016 IPL, five of six games were won by the chasing team. In 11 games this season, only twice has a team chosen to bat first, both times by Royal Challengers Bangalore.
Knight Riders, who have won their last seven games against Kings XI, made three changes from their previous game against Mumbai Indians. Chris Lynn, who hurt his shoulder while fielding, was replaced by seam-bowling allrounder Colin de Grandhomme. Umesh Yadav, fit again after India's long home season, was included for Ankit Rajpoot in a like-for-like replacement. To add more experience to the bowling department, left-arm wristspinner Kuldeep Yadav was left out for Piyush Chawla.
In a horses-for-courses selection, Knight Riders' preference for de Grandhomme over Shakib Al Hasan was an indicator that they expected the pitch to favour seam more than spin.
Kings XI, too, made a change, bringing in fast bowler Ishant Sharma for T Natarajan, who bowled just one over in their previous game against Royal Challengers Bangalore.
Kolkata Knight Riders: 1 Gautam Gambhir (capt), 2 Robin Uthappa (wk), 3 Manish Pandey, 4 Yusuf Pathan, 5 Suryakumar Yadav, 6 Colin de Grandhomme, 7 Chris Woakes, 8 Sunil Narine, 9 Piyush Chawla, 10 Umesh Yadav, 11 Trent Boult
Kings XI Punjab: 1 Hashim Amla, 2 Manan Vohra, 3 Wriddhiman Saha (wk), 4 Glenn Maxwell (capt), 5 David Miller, 6 Marcus Stoinis, 7 Axar Patel, 8 Mohit Sharma, 9 Sandeep Sharma, 10 Varun Aaron, 11 Ishant Sharma
EmoticonEmoticon