In the 44th match of the 11th season of Indian Premier League, Kings XI Punjab won the toss and invited Dinesh Karthik’s Kolkata Knight Riders to bat first at the Holkar Cricket Stadium, Indore, on Saturday.

After losing the toss, Dinesh Karthik said: “One team has to bat first. We’ll try to make the most of the opportunity. Just one change for us, Searles comes in for Curran. We are sticking to the same team as I am someone who believes to stick to one team and believe in the boys. So we are sticking to the same XI with just one change.”

R Ashwin said: “We’ll bowl first. It’s a small ground and difficult to defend, so we’ll try to chase it down. It’s a day game and it’s dried up a bit. Previous games were sticky but this one is expected to stay the same. We are sticking to our old combination. We have brought Agarwal in for Nath, Sran for Tiwary and Finch for Stoinis.”

On Saturday’s match, Kings XI Punjab will be aiming to consolidate their position in the top three of the Indian Premier League (IPL) points table.

Both the sides are coming off a defeat and will be desperate to return to winning ways as the cash-rich league reaches its business end.

While Punjab are placed third with 12 points in their kitty, Kolkata are fifth in the league table with 10 points.

Kolkata was hammered by Mumbai in their last encounter as the Rohit Sharma-led side registered a thumping 102-run victory over them. Punjab, too, suffered a narrow 15-run loss to Rajasthan Royals in their last outing.

Teams:

Kings XI Punjab (Playing XI): Chris Gayle, Lokesh Rahul(w), Mayank Agarwal, Aaron Finch, Karun Nair, Axar Patel, Ravichandran Ashwin(c), Andrew Tye, Mohit Sharma, Barinder Sran, Mujeeb Ur Rahman

Kolkata Knight Riders (Playing XI): Chris Lynn, Sunil Narine, Robin Uthappa, Shubman Gill, Nitish Rana, Dinesh Karthik(w/c), Andre Russell, Javon Searles, Piyush Chawla, Prasidh Krishna, Kuldeep Yadav

Kolkata Knight Riders (From): Chris Lynn, Sunil Narine, Robin Uthappa, Shubman Gill, Nitish Rana, Dinesh Karthik(w/c), Andre Russell, Tom Curran, Piyush Chawla, Prasidh Krishna, Kuldeep Yadav, Mitchell Johnson, Rinku Singh, Shivam Mavi, Vinay Kumar, Ishank Jaggi, Apoorv Wankhade, Cameron Delport, Javon Searles

Kings XI Punjab (From): Chris Gayle, Lokesh Rahul(w), Karun Nair, Akshdeep Nath, Manoj Tiwary, Marcus Stoinis, Axar Patel, Ravichandran Ashwin(c), Andrew Tye, Mohit Sharma, Mujeeb Ur Rahman, Ankit Rajpoot, Yuvraj Singh, Mayank Agarwal, Barinder Sran, David Miller, Aaron Finch, Ben Dwarshuis, Pardeep Sahu, Mayank Dagar, Manzoor Dar

-With IANS inputs.