There was a bit of confusion after the toss as Nitish Rana wasn’t sure if Faf said heads or tails while calling the toss. Even the match referee couldn’t hear him and pointed at Rana for winning the toss. However, Faf cleared that it was a miscommunication due to a difference in accent while toss presenter Sanjay Manjrekar backed his claims.
“Going to have a bowl Bit of a misunderstanding with the accent there (confusion at the toss),” said Faf. “Was dew last night. Hoping it will get skiddy in the second innings. That’s a long way away. Today is a completely new game. Really motivated to put in a good performance. Forced change with Topley being injured. Willey comes in.”
KKR captain Rana said he wanted to bowl first as well due to the dew factor. As far as the KKR playing 11 was concerned, the skipper said they made one change as Anukul Roy is replaced by mystery spinner Suyash Sharma.
Royal Challengers Bangalore Playing 11: Virat Kohli, Faf du Plessis(c), Dinesh Karthik(w), Glenn Maxwell, Michael Bracewell, Shahbaz Ahmed, David Willey, Karn Sharma, Harshal Patel, Akash Deep, Mohammed Siraj
Kolkata Knight Riders Playing 11: Mandeep Singh, Rahmanullah Gurbaz(w), Nitish Rana(c), Rinku Singh, Andre Russell, Shardul Thakur, Sunil Narine, Suyash Sharma, Tim Southee, Umesh Yadav, Varun Chakaravarthy
As far as the pitch report is concerned, 195 is the average first innings score at the Eden Gardens in the last nine games and Danny Morrison, while doing the pitch report on JioCinema, reckoned that the team batting first must score as much in the first innings as dew may come into play in the second innings.
