Lucknow Super Giants have won the toss and elected to bowl first in a crucial IPL 2026 clash against Kolkata Knight Riders at the iconic Eden Gardens in Kolkata.
LSG have decided to stick with the same playing XI, backing the combination that secured them a solid win against Sunrisers Hyderabad on Sunday. The side looks settled and they would not want to disturb that balance at this stage.
For Kolkata Knight Riders, there is a big boost as Sunil Narine returns to the XI. However, Varun Chakravarthy still misses out as he continues to recover from a finger injury, which is a setback for the hosts. In a bit of a surprise, Blessing Muzarabani left out despite bowling well in the previous games.
Kolkata Knight Riders: Ajinkya Rahane (c), Finn Allen, Cameron Green, Angkrish Raghuvanshi (wk), Rinku Singh, Ramandeep Singh, Anukul Roy, Rovman Powell, Sunil Narine, Navdeep Saini, Kartik Tyagi
Impact subs - Manish Pandey, Vaibhav Arora, Tejasvi Dahiya, Rahul Tripathi, Tim Seifert
Lucknow Super Giants: Mitchell Marsh, Aiden Markram, Rishabh Pant (wk/c), Nicholas Pooran, Abdul Samad, Mukul Choudhary, Manimaran Siddharth, Avesh Khan, Mohammed Shami, Digvesh Rathi, Prince Yadav
Impact subs - Ayush Badoni, Matthew Breetzke, Shahbaz Ahmad, Mayank Yadav, Himmat Singh
KKR vs LSG: Captains’ take at the toss
LSG skipper Rishabh Pant looked pleased with how things are shaping up and stressed on maintaining intent.
“Victory definitely adds to the atmosphere of the team. We always talk about being positive, having that intent at the same time. When you win, I think when people see all that coming together, it feels really good.”
On the other hand, KKR captain Ajinkya Rahane spoke about the team combination and told about Cameron Green's availability to bowl.
“We will probably see Green bowl, the combination gets better, so Rovman Powell plays. When Cam Green bowls then we have that extra bowler with us.”
