IPL 2024: Ashwin back from injury as Rajasthan Royals opt to bowl first against Kolkata Knight Riders

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Kolkata, April 16 (IANS) Kolkata Knight Riders/Rajasthan Royals won the toss and elected to bat/bowl first against Rajasthan Royals/Kolkata Knight Riders in Match 31 of Indian Premier League (IPL) 2024 at the Eden Gardens here on Tuesday.

Rajasthan Royals brought back Ravichandran Ashwin in playing XI while Jos Buttler was among the substitutes. Both of them had missed their last match due to injuries. Kolkata Knight Riders went in unchanged in the top-of-the-table clash between two teams that are placed No.1 and 2 in the points table.

Rajasthan Royals skipper Sanju Samson said he opted to bowl first because it could be better batting in the second innings. "It might be better to bat here, but it's ok, we'll bowl first. To be back at Eden is special, it has a special vibe. Jos and Ash bhai are available for this game," said Samson.

KKR skipper Shreyas Iyer too wanted to bowl first if he had won the toss. "Yeah, we wanted to bowl first because of the way it was seaming the other day. We are going with the same team," he said at the toss.

There is not much to differentiate between the two teams with Kolkata Knight Riders winning 14 and Rajasthan Royals 13 in 27 matches between them.

Playing XIs:

Rajasthan Royals: Yashasvi Jaiswal, Rovman Powell, Sanju Samson (c/wk), Riyan Parag, Shimron Hetmyer, Dhruv Jurel, R. Ashwin, Trent Boult, Avesh Khan, Kuldeep Sen, Yuzvi Chahal

Impact Substitutes: Jos Buttler, Tom Kohler-Cadmore, Shubham Dubey, Navdeep Saini, Nandre Burger

Kolkata Knight Riders: Phil Salt, Sunil Narine, Shreyas Iyer (c), Venkatesh Iyer, Angkrish Raghuvanshi, Rinku Singh, Andre Russell, Ramandeep Singh, Mitchell Starc, Varun Chakravarthy, Harshit Rana

Impact Substitutes: Suyash Sharma, Anukul Roy, Manish Pandey, Vaibhav Arora, Rahmanullah Gurbaz.

--IANS

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