Nitish Rana, the captain of the Kolkata Knight Riders, decided to bowl first against the Sunrisers Hyderabad at the Eden Gardens on Friday after winning the toss. The starting lineup for KKR hasn’t changed, however, Washington Sundar has been replaced by Abhishek Sharma for Sunrisers Hyderabad.
The Knight Riders are currently in third place in the points standings after winning two of their first three games. The Sunisers started the season with two losses before picking up their first win of the year against the Punjab Kings in their previous match.
Why is Washington Sundar not playing today?
Washington Sundar did not have much bowling to do in this tournament. He has not been bowling in the powerplay nor contributing much with the bat. Hence he is replaced by young Punjab batter Abhishek Sharma.
Abhishek Sharma has been a part of the Sunrisers Hyderabad squad for the last 2-3 years and is a very exciting young talent. He is excellent against spin and is only among the handful of batters to take down Rashid Khan. With Harry Brook opening in the last innings and his struggles against spin, Abhishek might play in the middle order to tackle the spin trio of KKR.
What did the captains say at the toss?
Aiden Markram: Happy either way. Would have looked to bowl, that is the trend. This is a high-scoring wicket, so happy to get runs on the board. Nice to get a win, and today is a fresh start. Hopefully, we can do well. One change, Abhishek Sharma comes in for Washi Sundar. I don’t think we’ll set a target, you need to look at the pitch and then reassess. Whatever we get we’ll try our best to defend.
Nitish Rana: We’ll bowl first. We’ve been practicing here and there has been dew. Keeping in mind, we want to chase. Same XI for today.
Sunrisers Hyderabad (Playing XI)
Harry Brook, Mayank Agarwal, Rahul Tripathi, Aiden Markram(c), Abhishek Sharma, Heinrich Klaasen(w), Marco Jansen, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Mayank Markande, Umran Malik, T Natarajan
Kolkata Knight Riders (Playing XI)
Rahmanullah Gurbaz(w), N Jagadeesan, Nitish Rana(c), Rinku Singh, Andre Russell, Sunil Narine, Shardul Thakur, Umesh Yadav, Suyash Sharma, Lockie Ferguson, Varun Chakaravarthy
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