Toss: Kolkata Knight Riders chose to bowl v Rising Pune Supergiants
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Albie Morkel makes his debut for Rising Pune Supergiants, his fourth IPL franchise © BCCI
Kolkata Knight Riders have won three out of three games when they have chased this season, and their captain Gautam Gambhir had no hesitation in choosing to bowl against Rising Pune Supergiants.
Both sides had to make forced changes, with a bout of chickenpox ruling Manish Pandey out of the match and a calf injury ending Kevin Pietersen’s tournament. Supergiants brought in Saurabh Tiwary and Albie Morkel for Pietersen and Ishant Sharma, while Knight Riders replaced Pandey with R Sathish.
With Ishant out of the side, Supergiants were left without a specialist fast bowler. They went into the game with three spinners and a seam attack made up entirely of allrounders – Albie Morkel, Thisara Perera and Rajat Bhatia.
Knight Riders have made a bright start to the tournament, gathering six points from their first four games. Supergiants won their first match, but have lost three on the bounce since then.
Rising Pune Supergiants: 1 Ajinkya Rahane, 2 Faf du Plessis, 3 Steven Smith, 4 MS Dhoni (capt & wk), 5 Saurabh Tiwary, 6 Albie Morkel, 7 Thisara Perera, 8 Rajat Bhatia, 9 R Ashwin, 10 Ankit Sharma, 11 M Ashwin
Kolkata Knight Riders: 1 Robin Uthappa (wk), 2 Gautam Gambhir (capt & wk), 3 Shakib Al Hasan, 4 Suryakumar Yadav, 5 Yusuf Pathan, 6 Andre Russell, 7 R Sathish, 8 Piyush Chawla, 9 Sunil Narine, 10 Morne Morkel, 11 Umesh Yadav
Karthik Krishnaswamy is a senior sub-editor at ESPNcricinfo
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Source: ESPN Crickinfo