Kolkata Knight Riders won the toss and their skipper, Ajinkya Rahane, elected to bat first against Punjab Kings, a tactical call that has raised eyebrows with former India off-spinner Ravichandran Ashwin questioning the move and highlighting the lack of calculation behind the move.
KKR has lost both their opening games in IPL 2026 and were forced to make two changes, bringing in Rovman Powell and Navdeep Saini in place of an unwell Sunil Narine and mystery spinner Varun Chakravarthy, who is ruled out due to an injury.
“Looks a good wicket, little bit on the dryer side but it’s a very good wicket and slightly less covering of grass as well. That’s the reason to put the runs on the board first,” Rahane said while explaining his thoughts at the toss.
Interestingly, this is the second time in 12 matches that a captain has opted to bat first in this IPL season after RR vs GT. Only three games have been won by the team batting first in the 11 games of IPL 2026 so far.
However, Ashwin remain unconvinced as he took to X and wrote: “When you know it’s going to be a rain-affected game, with an inexperienced bowling attack at your disposal, you choose to bat first.
“Interesting thought process.”
However, with PBKS’s opening pair of Arshdeep Singh and Xavier Barlett getting the ball to do the talking, this has been the talking point of the night so far. There was a fair bit of rain yesterday as well, and with the covers on and cloud cover, electing to bat was going to be a questionable call.
FOLLOW: KKR vs PBKS Live Score, IPL 2026
Kolkata Knight Riders vs Punjab Kings Playing XI
Kolkata Knight Riders: Finn Allen, Ajinkya Rahane (c), Cameron Green, Angkrish Raghuvanshi (wk), Rovman Powell, Rinku Singh, Ramandeep Singh, Anukul Roy, Navdeep Saini, Vaibhav Arora, Kartik Tyagi.
Punjab Kings: Prabhsimran Singh (wk), Cooper Connolly, Shreyas Iyer (c), Nehal Wadhera, Shashank Singh, Marcus Stoinis, Marco Jansen, Xavier Bartlett, Vijaykumar Vyshak, Arshdeep Singh, Yuzvendra Chahal.
