BENGALURU: Royal Challengers Bangalore stand-in skipper Virat Kohli won the toss and opted to field against Kolkata Knight Riders in the Indian Premier League match at the M Chinnaswamy Stadium here on Wednesday.
IPL has moved towards the second stage of the tournament and RCB and KKR will play their second match against each other.
RCB is placed at the fifth position in the IPL points table, having four wins and three losses, whereas KKR is placed at the eighth position with two wins and five losses.
RCB won the last two matches under the captaincy of their old skipper Virat Kohli and Faf du Plessis played as an impact player in both games. RCB defeated Punjab Kings by 24 runs and Rajasthan Royals by 7 runs respectively.
KKR will be looking for their third tournament win as they have lost the last four matches. KKR had played their previous match against Chennai Super Kings, losing it with a huge margin of 49 runs.
KKR has made one change, Vaibhav Arora has replaced Kulwant Khejroliya. RCB has not made any change to their side from the previous match.Virat Kohli said at the toss that the team has chased well at the Chinnaswamy stadium.
“Decided to bowl first. No brainer. Evening game at Chinnaswamy, we’ve chased well here. It was unexpected but nothing I’m not used to (on stand-in captaincy). It’s been fun so far because of the way the team has been playing. Faf will be playing the impact role again. Hopefully he’ll be back leading from the next game. Looks like a great pitch, the usual Chinnaswamy pitch that we expect.”
KKR captain Nitish Rana said it is an important game for the team.
“Second half of the tournament has started, it’s an important game. We’ve played some good cricket, some not so good. It’s time to step up. If we play well collectively, the result will be in our favour. In previous games, we’ve had unforced changes. Shardul had a niggle, Gurbaz had a niggle. We were going to bat. One change from the last match – Vaibhav Arora comes in for Kulwant.
Royal Challengers Bangalore (Playing XI): Virat Kohli(c), Shahbaz Ahmed, Glenn Maxwell, Mahipal Lomror, Dinesh Karthik(w), Suyash Prabhudessai, Wanindu Hasaranga, David Willey, Vijaykumar Vyshak, Harshal Patel, Mohammed Siraj.
Kolkata Knight Riders (Playing XI): N Jagadeesan(w), Jason Roy, Venkatesh Iyer, Nitish Rana(c), Rinku Singh, Andre Russell, Sunil Narine, David Wiese, Vaibhav Arora, Umesh Yadav, Varun Chakaravarthy. (ANI)