Visakhapatnam, April 3 (IANS): Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) captain Shreyas Iyer has won the toss and elected to bat first against Delhi Capitals (DC) in match 16 of Indian Premier League (IPL) 2024 at the ACA-VDCA Cricket Stadium in Visakhapatnam on Wednesday evening.
DC are at number seven currently in the points table, and got off the mark with a 20-run win over Chennai Super Kings on Sunday. KKR, the two-time IPL champions, are up at second place and still undefeated in the competition. In the last three IPL meetings between these two teams, DC have emerged victorious.
After winning the toss, Iyer said young batter Angkrish Raghuvanshi comes back into the playing eleven. “The wicket looks like a belter, no drastic change in the wicket when compared to the last game. It's been quite a journey, was with Delhi and now with KKR, I'm comfortable with this switch.”
“Anything can happen on a given day, it's important to stick to the process. We've Sunil (Narine) coming in and going after the bowlers in the first 6 overs, so his role is very clear and the rest know what's expected of them,” he said.
DC skipper Rishabh Pant said fast-bowler Mukesh Kumar is injured and is replaced by seam-bowling all-rounder Sumit Kumar in the playing eleven. “We would have batted first as well, could get a bit slower. It was nice to be back with the group, but I'm not thinking too far ahead.”
“The bowlers did a great job, especially the fast bowlers, and we'd like them to do it once again. Not thinking about the team combination for the first two games, but we've had people working hard in the nets. We just need to keep doing the right things,” he said.
Playing XIs
Delhi Capitals: Prithvi Shaw, David Warner, Mitchell Marsh, Rishabh Pant (captain & wicketkeeper), Tristan Stubbs, Axar Patel, Sumit Kumar, Rasikh Salam Dar, Anrich Nortje, Ishant Sharma and Khaleel Ahmed
Substitutes: Abishek Porel, Kumar Kushagra, Pravin Dubey, Lalit Yadav and Jake Fraser-McGurk
Kolkata Knight Riders: Phil Salt (wicketkeeper), Sunil Narine, Venkatesh Iyer, Shreyas Iyer (captain), Rinku Singh, Angkrish Raghuvanshi, Andre Russell, Ramandeep Singh, Mitchell Starc, Harshit Rana and Varun Chakaravarthy
Substitutes: Suyash Sharma, Anukul Roy, Manish Pandey, Vaibhav Arora and Rahmanullah Gurbaz