Sanju Samson and Eoin Morgan
Rajasthan Royals skipper Sanju Samson won the toss and elected to bowl first against Kolkata Knight Riders on Saturday at the Wankhede Stadium. Unfazed by three defeats so far in the season, Samson said that there are going to be 'ups and downs' in a tournament like the IPL, adding that they've made a couple of changes to their line-up.
Rajasthan brought in Yashasvi Jaiswal and Jaydev Unadkat in their Playing XI. Jaydev Unadkat also came in for Shreyas Gopal while Jaiswal replaced Manan Vohra.
"We are going to bowl first. It has helped the bowlers here when you bowl first. I like to appreciate the team members as there are lot of positives even though we have lost three games. We haven't said much, in a tournament like IPL there are going to be ups and downs. We have two changes," said Samson.
Kolkata, who have also suffered three defeats so far, introduced one change, giving Shivam Mavi a chance in place of Kamlesh Nagarkoti.
In 22 games so far between the two sides, Kolkata Knight Riders won in 12 of them, with RR securing victories in the remaining 10. In the last season, however, KKR won both games.
"We would have liked to bowl first. We did see a game the other night where 220 was enough. Hopefully, we can rectify our mistakes today. It was a great game of cricket. The character the guys showed was amazing from the position we were in. We have one change, Mavi comes in for Nagarkoti," said Eoin Morgan.
"Just a change of gameplan and it is a match-up change. The record here traditionally is seam works better than spin, we are in a unique position of having two mystery spinners who can curb that trend a little bit. Lucky to have them," he added.
Kolkata Knight Riders (Playing XI): Nitish Rana, Shubman Gill, Rahul Tripathi, Eoin Morgan(c), Dinesh Karthik(w), Sunil Narine, Andre Russell, Pat Cummins, Varun Chakravarthy, Shivam Mavi, Prasidh Krishna
Rajasthan Royals (Playing XI): Jos Buttler, Yashasvi Jaiswal, Sanju Samson(w/c), David Miller, Shivam Dube, Riyan Parag, Rahul Tewatia, Chris Morris, Jaydev Unadkat, Chetan Sakariya, Mustafizur Rahma
