IPL 2023: Punjab Kings to Bat First, Bhanuka Rajapaksa Replaces Matthew Short; KKR Unchanged

Punjab Kings skipper Shikhar Dhawan won the toss against Kolkata Knight Riders captain Nitish Rana in the IPL 2023 clash between the two sides at Eden Gardens in Kolkata on Monday, May 8.

Dhawan revealed that Punjab made just 1 change to their side, Matthew Short was replaced by Bhanuka Rajapaksa, whereas KKR captain Nitish went with the same team for the match.

Dhawan was quizzed about his team scoring 200 in recent games on which he said he’d like to continue scoring big in every match.

KKR vs PBKS Live Cricket Score: Rajapaksa in as Punjab Kings Bat First Against Unchanged Kolkata Knight Riders

“We gonna bat first. The wicket looks quite dry, we would like to put a good total and defend it. That’s a good thing that we are scoring 200 every game. One change, Bhanuka comes in place of Short. Seems like it will stop a bit and come,” said Dhawan during toss.

Rana meanwhile said that he would have wanted to bat first, since KKR are relying heavily on their spin attack.

“The wicket looks to be on the drier side. We are going with the same team. We wanted to bat first so that our spinners can come more into play later in the game. (Regarding whether the boundaries are short for left-handers) Even for right-handers, it is short,” said Rana.

Jason Roy, Anukul Roy, Lockie Ferguson, Narayan Jagadeesan, and Kulwant Khejroliya were named as KKR’s impacts subs list.

Nathan Ellis, Sikandar Raza, Atharva Taide, Mohit Rathee and Matthew Short made up the impact subs list for Punjab.

Teams:

Kolkata Knight Riders: Rahmanullah Gurbaz(w), Venkatesh Iyer, Nitish Rana(c), Rinku Singh, Andre Russell, Sunil Narine, Shardul Thakur, Vaibhav Arora, Harshit Rana, Suyash Sharma, Varun Chakaravarthy

Punjab Kings: Prabhsimran Singh, Shikhar Dhawan(c), Bhanuka Rajapaksa, Liam Livingstone, Jitesh Sharma(w), Sam Curran, Shahrukh Khan, Harpreet Brar, Rishi Dhawan, Rahul Chahar, Arshdeep Singh

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