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The defeat against Sunrisers Hyderabad once again showed how top heavy is Kings XI Punjab's batting is. The exit of KL Rahul and Mayank Agarwal exposed a shaky middle-order when Glenn Maxwell continued his poor run. But for Nicholas Pooran's 37-ball 77, the KXIP faltered and that led to a heavy defeat against SRH. That gives the KXIP team management to insert the veteran 'boss' of cricket Chris Gayle to play his first match of IPL 2020. But Gayle and the rest of the KXIP batting has to respect the Kolkata Knight Riders bowling attack that has both variety and bite. Young pacers Shivam Mavi and Kamlesh Nagarkoti have been impressive for KKR while Andre Russell and Sunil Narine have contributed with the ball in the middle overs. KKR have three wins from five matches and are riding some fine performances from their young top order batsmen. Shubman Gill, Nitish Rana and Rahul Tripathi have all looked good with the bat and Eoin Morgan has come to the party too. Get here live cricket scores and ball by ball commentary of KXIP vs KKR in Abu Dhabi. (LIVE SCORECARD | POINTS TABLE | CRICKET NEWS)
3:03 PM IST: Dinesh Karthik wins the toss, and Kolkata Knight Riders bat first.
3:08 PM IST: One change each for both the teams, but no Chris Gayle yet for Kings XI Punjab. Shivam Mavi is not fit and Kolkata Knight Riders have brought Prasidh Krishna. For Punjab, Chris Jordan in for unfit Sheldon Cottrell.
Kings XI Punjab: KL Rahul (c), Mayank Agarwal, Mandeep Singh, Nicholas Pooran, Simran Singh (wk), Glenn Maxwell, Mujeeb Ur Rahman, Chris Jordan, Ravi Bishnoi, Mohammed Shami, Arshdeep Singh.
Kolkata Knight Riders: Rahul Tripathi, Shubman Gill, Nitish Rana, Sunil Narine, Eoin Morgan, Andre Russell, Dinesh Karthik (c & wk), Pat Cummins, Kamlesh Nagarkoti, Prasidh Krishna, Varun Chakravarthy.
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