KKR opt to bat first against PBKS; Varun and Narine miss out

Defying the forecast of rain, Rahane opted to make full use of his side’s formidable batting lineup and put runs on the board, aiming to ease the pressure on a relatively weakened bowling unit.

Changes to playing XI

KKR made two changes to their side, bringing in Rovman Powell and Navdeep Saini in place of Varun Chakravarthy and key allrounder Sunil Narine.

While Varun picked up an injury in the previous match, Narine is unavailable due to illness, Rahane confirmed at the toss.

Punjab Kings captain Shreyas Iyer said his team remained unchanged.

Playing XI

KKR XI: F. Allen, A. Rahane (c), C. Green, A. Raghuvanshi (wk), R. Powell, R. Singh, R. Singh, A. Roy, N. Saini, V. Arora, K. Tyagi.

PBKS XI: P. Singh (wk), C. Connolly, S. Iyer (c), N. Wadhera, S. Singh, M. Stoinis, M. Jansen, X. Bartlett, V. Vijaykumar, A. Singh, Y. Chahal.