3.29pm Narine has a smile on his face as he gets ready. RCB are out in their blue and green jersey today. Mohammed Siraj has the new ball in hand. Phil Salt on strike. Kohli cheered the crowd up early by handing his cap to the umpire and pretending to get ready to bowl the first over.
Mustafa Moudi: “I dont agree that RCB are in desperate need of a squad reshuffle in the mega auction. They can retain Virat Kohli, Glenn Maxwell, Cameron Green, Will Jacks and Mohammed Siraj. Maxwell, Green and Siraj might not be in good form this season but retentions are done on the basis of potential, not on current form. If these players starts performing to their full potential, RCB might be on the top of the Points Table !!”
Afeef: “Tough to see Topley getting dropped. He’s a penetrative bowler when he plays for England. I was hoping he’d do well for RCB this season.”
3.15pm The first six overs of the game may prove to be deciding. Phil Salt and Sunil Narine are explosive as they come and RCB have been very poor with the new ball – their economy rate of 10.5 is the worst in IPL 2024.
KKR XI: 1 Phil Salt (wk), 2 Sunil Narine, 3 Angkrish Raghuvanshi, 4 Shreyas Iyer (capt), 5 Venkatesh Iyer, 6 Andre Russell, 7 Rinku Singh, 8 Ramandeep Singh, 9 Mitchell Starc, 10 Varun Chakravarthy, 11 Harshit Rana
Subs: Suyash Sharma, Anukul Roy, Manish Pandey, Vaibhav Arora, Rahmanullah Gurbaz
RCB XI: 1 Virat Kohli, 2 Faf du Plessis (capt), 3 Will Jacks, 4 Rajat Patidar, 5 Cameron Green, 6 Dinesh Karthik (wk), 7 Mahipal Lomror, 8 Karn Sharma 9 Lockie Ferguson, 10 Mohammed Siraj, 11 Yash Dayal
Subs: Suyash Prabhudessai, Anuj Rawat, Himanshu Sharma, Vyshak Vijaykumar, Swapnil Singh
Mustafa Moudi: “Great That DK is playing his 250th match against the side from which he has scored most runs from his career (1143) and the only side he has captained in his IPL Career !!”
3pm It’s toss time! RCB will bowl first. Du Plessis says Eden Gardens has always been a chasing ground. Says he felt the temperature drop in an hour in after coming to the ground yesterday. Says that teams are batting so aggressively, conceding 60-70 runs in the powerplay is becoming the new norm. Three changes for RCB – Siraj, Green and Karn Sharma come in. He says his team’s situation is like a batter looking for form – just need one win to get the momentum. Shreyas Iyer says he assumes the wicket will be slow and that he would have loved to have bowled as well. Says he wants to tire RCB out as much as possible. He says all the batters are in great form and hitting the ball well so it’s important to stick to the basics and not complicate them. “Let’s stay in the present and if the wicket changes we can decide what target we want to set.”
2.50pm Batters have set new highs for sixes and 220-plus totals this year. S Rajesh and Shiva Jayaraman look at the turbo-charged, batter-dominated season like no other that is IPL 2024.
2.40pm Dinesh Karthik has been in scintillating form. He will be 39 when the 2024 T20 World Cup comes around, but that is not deterring him from doing ‘everything I can‘ to make the India squad.
2.35pm RCB come up again against old nemesis Sunil Narine. How will he impact the game? Who are the players to watch? Any interesting stats? Find out all that and more in Hemant Brar’s preview.
Meanwhile, here’s what Andre Russell had to say ahead of the game: “[Narine’s knock] Something special for us as well. He’s been hitting the ball well in practice as well. Happy he crossed the line. I was playing the support role at the time. Against Chahal’s legspin, I was trying to give him the strike. When you are happy for someone you’ve played with for over five years, you are at the height of your emotions. Once we are winning, [my contribution] does not matter that much. Fielding in the hotspots where catches and stuff will be coming. With the ball, I look forward to bowl to most guys. They say we enjoy your batting, but I ask them, what about my bowling? I always like to be involved, whether we are in a good position or not. [Heat] It’s about managing warm-ups. Not to warm up a lot and use your energies. I bowl six to eight deliveries to get the feel and knock a few balls and am happy.”
2.30pm It’s hot as it gets in Kolkata today as we wait for Kolkata Knight Riders to take on Royal Challengers Bengaluru at the Eden Gardens. KKR won their last day game, against Lucknow Super Giants last Sunday. And they won their last game against RCB earlier in the season. RCB are bottom of the table, with a bowling attack under severe pressure. KKR are favourites today, but can RCB pull off an upset? Find out with me, Abhimanyu, and S Sudarshanan as we bring you all the action from the first game of today’s double-header.
Here is an early pitch report: It is 43 degrees in Kolkata and pitch no. 2 will be used. The square boundaries are 61m and 66m and the straight hit is 73m. Graeme Swann looks at the strip and says it is very very dry and flat. Swann looks at one spot of the surface from the pavilion end and says that if spinners can land on the length, they could get something. But otherwise, the pitch looks flat, runs galore. Swann says win the toss and bat first due to the heat.
