Sunil Narine and Dinesh Karthik
Kolkata Knight Riders' skipper Eoin Morgan won the toss and elected to bowl first against Chennai Super Kings at the Wankhede Stadium on Wednesday. Sunil Narine and Kamlesh Nagarkoti return to the KKR set-up in place of Shakib Al Hasan and Harbhajan Singh respectively.
"We are going to bowl. Hopefully, change of fortunes for us as well. It is normally a very good wicket here and the majority of the games have been competitive. Chasing in Chennai hasn't been fruitful for anyone and chasing at Wankhede is productive. Harbhajan misses out and Nagarkoti comes in," said Morgan.
For Chennai, Lungi Ngidi will be donning the yellow jersey in place of Dwayne Bravo, who has been rested for the game.
"Looks similar. But will be tacky and we have to be watchful in the first few overs. There was less dew and the spinners could bowl freely. We get too much dew then the lengths are quite different. We have rested Bravo for this game and Ngidi comes in," said MS Dhoni.
Having notched up back-to-back wins, CSK would look to extend their winning run when they take on Morgan-led camp. In contrast to their last year's performance in the UAE, the Chennai outfit has been impressive so far this season. After losing against Delhi Capitals in their opening fixture, the Dhoni-led side got back to its old self, defeating Punjab Kings and Rajasthan Royals in a convincing manner.
KKR, on the other hand, will be looking to recover from consecutive losses. In both the defeats, KKR had the upper hands but could not capitalise on their starts. Head coach Brendon McCullum had already hinted at making some changes after their 38-run defeat to Royal Challengers Bangalore.
Kolkata Knight Riders (Playing XI): Nitish Rana, Shubman Gill, Rahul Tripathi, Eoin Morgan(c), Dinesh Karthik(w), Andre Russell, Pat Cummins, Kamlesh Nagarkoti, Sunil Narine, Varun Chakravarthy, Prasidh Krishna
Chennai Super Kings (Playing XI): Ruturaj Gaikwad, Faf du Plessis, Moeen Ali, Suresh Raina, Ambati Rayudu, Ravindra Jadeja, MS Dhoni(w/c), Sam Curran, Shardul Thakur, Lungi Ngidi, Deepak Chahar
