Lucknow Super Giants won the toss at the Ekana Stadium on Sunday evening and Rishabh Pant did exactly what he has been doing all season, he chose to bowl first, put the opposition in, and backed his batting group to find answers in the chase. The decision was straightforward enough on a surface that tends to slow down as the evening progresses, but the bigger talking point before a ball had even been bowled was the name missing from the KKR playing XI. Matheesha Pathirana, the ₹18-crore Sri Lankan signing who has been building toward his debut for the better part of a week in the Lucknow nets, has been left out again. KKR go into a must-win fixture at the bottom of the table without the one bowler who was supposed to fix their death-bowling problem, and on an evening where both sides desperately need points, that absence matters. LSG vs KKR: Matheesha Pathirana's IPL 2026 wait goes on and what it means for KKR He arrived in the KKR camp around April 18 after recovering from a muscle strain picked up during the T20 World Cup in February. A week of net sessions, cautious management from the medical team, reports from the pre-match press conference suggesting he was highly likely to debut tonight, and then his name was absent from the playing XI when it was read out at the toss. KKR continue to rely on Varun Chakaravarthy and Sunil Narine to do the heavy lifting with the ball, with Vaibhav Arora and Kartik Tyagi handling the pace responsibilities. It is a bowling attack that has shown it can win on turning tracks, Chakaravarthy's 3 for 14 against Rajasthan Royals was the kind of performance that changes the mood of a dressing room but the Ekana surface on a Sunday evening is not always the spin-friendly paradise KKR would want, and without Pathirana's slingy death-over variations, the final four overs remain their most exposed phase. LSG vs KKR: Two teams with nowhere left to hide The points table context for this fixture is about as stark as it gets. LSG sit ninth with four points, currently enduring a four-match losing streak that has turned what looked like a competitive squad into a side that cannot post or chase scores above 160 on their own ground. Rishabh Pant spoke at the toss about finding answers as a batting group, about staying tight, about being close to turning the season around, words that sound right but need to be backed up by performances that have been increasingly difficult to find. KKR are tenth with three points, one win from seven matches, and a campaign that has been as difficult as any they have had in recent memory. That one win, against Rajasthan Royals gave them something to hold onto, and Ajinkya Rahane spoke about the freedom being given to the batting unit and the improvement in training sessions. Also READ: Sanju Samson becomes fastest Indian to 5000 IPL runs; leaving MS Dhoni And Suresh Raina behind LSG vs KKR Playing XI Kolkata Knight Riders (Playing XI): Ajinkya Rahane(c), Tim Seifert(w), Cameron Green, Angkrish Raghuvanshi, Rovman Powell, Rinku Singh, Sunil Narine, Ramandeep Singh, Anukul Roy, Vaibhav Arora, Kartik Tyagi Lucknow Super Giants (Playing XI): Aiden Markram, Mitchell Marsh, Rishabh Pant(w/c), Nicholas Pooran, Ayush Badoni, Mukul Choudhary, George Linde, Mohammed Shami, Prince Yadav, Digvesh Singh Rathi, Mohsin Khan LSG vs KKR Impact Players Kolkata Knight Riders Impact Subs: Manish Pandey, Finn Allen, Tejasvi Singh, Navdeep Saini, Varun Chakravarthy Lucknow Super Giants Impact Subs: Himmat Singh, Akshat Raghuvanshi, Abdul Samad, Avesh Khan, Manimaran Siddharth