RCB Skipper Faf du Plessis won the toss against KKR (IPL Twitter screengrab)
Faf du Plessis won the toss as RCB elected to bowl first against KKR at Eden Gardens, as David Willey replaced Reece Topley while Suyash Sharma made his IPL debut
Kolkata Knight Riders hosted Royal Challengers Bangalore at the Eden Gardens on April 6, Thursday in match 9 of IPL 2023. RCB skipper Faf du Plessis won the toss and elected to bowl first.
The match referee had a slight confusion about who called what, Du Plessis called heads and heads it was and considering the due factor.
Du Plessis made one change to his playing XI, with Reece Topley injured, David Willey came into RCB’s first eleven, whereas KKR captain Nitish Rana also made one change, Suyash Sharma made his debut for the two-time champs, replacing Anukul Roy.
The historic rivalry between Kolkata Knight Riders and Royal Challengers Bangalore dates back to 2008, the first match of IPL was played between these two sides at the Chinnaswamy Stadium.
From Brendon McCullum’s sensational century in that fixture to Virat Kohli’s fiery faceoff against Gautam Gambhir, RCB and KKR always promise drama.
RCB skipper du Plessis was quizzed by Sanjay Manjrekar about the team’s chances to win their maiden IPL title to which the Proteas batter said that with the whole of IPL 2023 still to be played, it’s still a long way to go for the Bengaluru-based franchise.
“Going to have a bowl. Bit of a misunderstanding with the accent there (confusion at the toss). 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,” said Faf.
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Nitish Rana meanwhile admitted that he too would have liked to bowl first given the dew factor.
“Was looking to bowl as well because of the dew factor. Anukul is replaced by Suyash,” said Rana.
Teams:
Kolkata Knight Riders: Mandeep Singh, Rahmanullah Gurbaz(w), Venkatesh Iyer, Nitish Rana(c), Rinku Singh, Andre Russell, Shardul Thakur, Sunil Narine, Tim Southee, Umesh Yadav, Varun Chakaravarthy
Royal Challengers Bangalore: 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
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