Kolkata: Mumbai Indians elected to bowl first against Kolkata Knight Riders in Match 60 of IPL 2024 which has been reduced to 16 overs per side following a rain delay at the Eden Gardens here on Saturday.
With rain delaying the match by nearly one and a half hours, it was reduced to a 15-overs-per-side affair with one bowler allowed to bowl full quota of four overs while four bowlers can bowl three overs max. The Power-play overs would be from 1 to 5.
Having won the toss, Mumbai Indians captain Hardik Pandya said they would like to bowl first to see how the wicket behaves as it was under the covers for nearly two days.
Though they are going in with an unchanged side, former skipper Rohit Sharma will start on the bench and is likely to come in as an Impact Substitute.
Pandya said that they want to play good cricket and to their potential. He added that they don’t want to repeat their mistakes and enjoy their cricket. “Record at Eden is great, but cricket is played on the day and boys are aware but want to focus on how they can contribute to the game. Same team,” said Hardik Pandya.
KKR skipper Shreyas Iyer said it was ironic that he lost another toss despite practising with the coin. “In such games it is crucial. It’s gonna be an important game, want to get the Q ahead of the game,” he said.
KKR made one change in their playing eleven, bringing in Nitish Rana in place of Angkrish Raghuvanshi.
Playing XIs:
Kolkata Knight Riders: Phil Salt (wk), Sunil Narine, Nitish Rana, Shreyas Iyer (c), Venkatesh Iyer, Andre Russell, Ramandeep Singh, Rinku Singh, Mitchell Starc, Varun Chakravarthy, Harshit Rana.
Impact substitutes: Suyash Sharma, Anukul Roy, Vaibhav Arora, Angkrish Raghuvanshi, Rahmanullah Gurbaz
Mumbai Indians: Naman Dhir, Ishan Kishan (wk), Suryakumar Yadav, Tilak Varma, Nehal Wadhera, Hardik Pandya (c), Tim David, Anshul Kamboj, Piyush Chawla, Jasprit Bumrah, Nuwan Thushara.
Impact substitutes: Rohit Sharma, Shams Mulani, Shivalik Sharma, Mohammad Nabi, Kartikeya Singh.
(IANS)
