Kolkata, May 11 (IANS): Rajasthan Royals captain Sanju Samson has won the toss and elected to bowl first against Kolkata Knight Riders in match 56 of IPL 2023 at Eden Gardens on Thursday.

Both Kolkata and Rajasthan are currently on ten points, but at sixth and fifth place respectively. A win for either of the two teams will take them to third place in the points table.

After winning the toss, Samson said left-arm pacer Trent Boult comes back into the playing eleven in place of Kuldip Yadav, while KM Asif replaces Murugan Ashwin. "Long tournament, need to change according to the strength and weaknesses."

"Joe Root will bat at 4 and be a bowling option. It's a long tournament, we have had some tough games for the bowlers, the morale of the team is high, not easy to forget close losses, but we need to move on."

Kolkata skipper Nitish Rana said left-arm spin all-rounder Anukul Roy replaces pacer Vaibhav Arora in the playing eleven. "I think we're getting the type of pitches we want. We will have to play good cricket, take one game at a time and earn 2 points."

"Looks like the pitch is dry, they haven't watered a lot, so we are playing that extra spinner and add some depth to the batting."

Playing XIs

Kolkata Knight Riders: Rahmanullah Gurbaz (wicketkeeper), Jason Roy, Venkatesh Iyer, Nitish Rana (captain), Andre Russell, Rinku Singh, Sunil Narine, Shardul Thakur, Anukul Roy, Harshit Rana and Varun Chakaravarthy

Substitutes: Suyash Sharma, Vaibhav Arora, Narayan Jagadeesan, Lockie Ferguson, Umesh Yadav

Rajasthan Royals: Yashasvi Jaiswal, Jos Buttler, Sanju Samson (captain & wicketkeeper), Joe Root, Dhruv Jurel, Shimron Hetmyer, Ravichandran Ashwin, Trent Boult, Sandeep Sharma, KM Asif and Yuzvendra Chahal

Substitutes: Devdutt Padikkal, Riyan Parag, Murugan Ashwin, Navdeep Saini, Donovan Ferreira