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Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) will be banking on the explosive power of an Andre Russell and Eoin Morgan in their Indian Premier League (IPL) 2020 opener against Mumbai Indians (MI) at the Zayed Stadium in Abu Dhabi Wednesday evening. KKR have the IPL's first centurion Brendon McCullum as head coach and the Kiwi's aggressive mentality is bound to reflect on the team that will be led by Dinesh Karthik. MI are equally matched in terms of explosive power and Kieron Pollard showed some bits of it in their opening match against Chennai Super Kings on September 19. With good batsmen on either side, it will boil down to the better bowling and fielding side to make the difference. The Rohit Sharma-led MI were rusty in the first match but KKR have not been tested yet. Both KKR and MI have excellent bowling attacks with Pat Cummins, the most expensive player in IPL 2020, expected to lead the attack for the two-time champions. Pollard will be playing his 150th IPL match and will hope to overturn the defending champions' six-match losing streak in the UAE, the defeats dating back to 2014.
7:04 PM IST: Kolkata Knight Riders captain Dinesh Karthik wins the toss and opts to bowl first against Mumbai Indians.
7:10 PM IST: Mumbai Indians are unchanged from their defeat to Chennai Super Kings. Here are the playing XIs:
Kolkata Knight Riders: Sunil Narine, Shubman Gill, Nitish Rana, Eoin Morgan, Andre Russell, Dinesh Karthik (c & wk), Nikhil Naik, Pat Cummins, Kuldeep Yadav, Sandeep Warrier, Shivam Mavi.
Mumbai Indians: Rohit Sharma (c), Quinton de Kock (wk), Suryakumar Yadav, Saurabh Tiwary, Hardik Pandya, Kieron Pollard, Krunal Pandya, James Pattinson, Rahul Chahar, Trent Boult, Jasprit Bumrah.
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