AGENCY
NEW DELHI, Mar 26
Kolkata Knight Riders captain Ajinkya Rahane won the toss and asked Rajasthan Royals to bat first on a dry surface in Guwahati. KKR were forced to make one change, with Moeen Ali replacing an unwell Sunil Narine. KKR mentor Dwayne Bravo handed Moeen his first KKR cap. Left-arm quick Spencer Johnson kept his place in the XI ahead of Anrich Nortje.
Nortje, though, was part of KKR’s Impact subs bench along with Angkrish Raghuvanshi, who is likely to slot in as the Impact Player when KKR chase.
As for RR, they handed a franchise debut to Wanindu Hasaranga and listed him at No.7. As the only allrounder in the XII, Hasaranga could lend some balance, which they had missed in their season-opener against SRH. Hasaranga replaced Afghanistan left-arm swing bowler Fazalhaq Farooqi and reunited with his Sri Lanka team-mate Maheesh Theekshana, the mystery spinner. RR kept faith in Jofra Archer, though he had bowled the most expensive spell in the IPL (4-0-76-0) against SRH on Sunday. Former Mumbai Indians fast bowler
Akash Madhwal might come in as RR’s Impact Player later tonight.
KKR’s bowling first XI 1 Quinton de Kock (wk), 2 Venkatesh Iyer, 3 Ajinkya Rahane (capt), 4, Rinku Singh, 5 Moeen Ali, 6 Andre Russell, 7 Ramandeep Singh, 8 Spencer Johnson, 9 Vaibhav Arora, 10 Harshit Rana, 11 Varun Chakravarthy.
Impact Subs: Anrich Nortje, Angkrish Raghuvanshi, Manish Pandey, Anukul Roy, Luvith Sisodia
RR’s batting first XI: 1 Yashasvi Jaiswal, 2 Sanju Samson, 3 Nitish Rana, 4 Riyan Parag, 5 Dhruv Jurel, 6 Shimron Hetmyer, 7 Wanindu Hasaranga, 8 Jofra Archer, 9 Maheesh Theekshana, 10 Thushar Deshpande, 11 Sandeep Sharma.
Impact Subs: Kunal Singh Rathore, Shubham Dubey, Akash Madhwal, Kumar Kartikeya, Kwena Maphaka
