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Toss Kolkata Knight Riders chose to bowl v Royal Challengers Bangalore
Kolkata Knight Riders won the toss, announced an unchanged XI, and asked Royal Challengers Bangalore to bat at Eden Gardens in the return fixture between the two sides.
In a contest between two struggling sides, Royal Challengers’ needs are more pressing, as a defeat in this game will all but mathematically – barely, at that – put them out of contention for the playoffs; they have won one and lost seven games so far.
They are not helped by an injury to AB de Villiers, which has put the star batsman out of action. Fellow South African Heinrich Klaasen has replaced him for his Royal Challengers debut. There’s good news in the bowling department for Virat Kohli’s men, though, with Dale Steyn in the XI, playing his first game for the side this season – and the first in the IPL since 2010 – after coming in as a replacement for Nathan Coulter-Nile.
Knight Riders have problems of their own, though not as severe as Royal Challengers’ – they have four wins and four losses at the moment. Dinesh Karthik’s side have lost their last three games but, fortunately for them, they have the services of Andre Russell, who was a doubtful started but has been deemed fit enough to be a part of the action.
Kolkata Knight Riders: 1 Chris Lynn, 2 Sunil Narine, 3 Robin Uthappa, 4 Nitish Rana, 5 Dinesh Karthik (capt & wk), 6 Shubman Gill, 7 Andre Russell, 8 Piyush Chawla, 9 Kuldeep Yadav, 10 Harry Gurney, 11 Prasidh Krishna
Royal Challengers Bangalore: 1 Parthiv Patel (wk), 2 Virat Kohli (capt), 3 Heinrich Klaasen, 4 Marcus Stoinis, 5 Moeen Ali, 6 Akshdeep Nath, 7 Pawan Negi, 8 Dale Steyn, 9 Navdeep Saini, 10 Mohammed Siraj, 11 Yuzvendra Chahal
Danyal Rasool is a sub-editor at ESPNcricinfo. @Danny61000
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