IPL 2021: KKR vs DC, Qualifier 2 Toss, Playing XI: Morgan invites Pant to bat; DC bring in Stoinis in Sharjah

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Sharjah, October 13: Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) captain Eoin Morgan on Wednesday (October 13) won the toss and invited Delhi Capitals (DC) skipper Rishabh Pant to bat first in the all-important Qualifier 2 of the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2021 here at Sharjah Stadium.

Kolkata Knight Riders - who are coming back from a win over Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) in the Eliminator two nights back - are playing with an unchanged side while Delhi Capitals - who are coming on the back of a defeat against Chennai Super Kings in Qualifier 1 - made one change to their playing eleven. Delhi Capitals rested England all-rounder Tom Curran and included Australia batting all-rounder Marcus Stoinis in the side to strengthen their batting.

After winning the toss, KKR skipper Morgan said, "We are going to bowl first. We have played a few games here at Sharjah, so far it's worked. There might be a dew factor later on. We have kept the same side. We are playing some good cricket at the moment, we are confident as a side. Guys know their roles inside out, so hoping to come here today and produce something close to that. Playing DC will be a good test. The mindset that we have had throughout the second phase has been spot-on, guys have looked to play aggressive, smart cricket, which is great. We really enjoyed playing here and hopefully, it has put some smiles on people's faces as well."

Delhi Capitals' captain Pant said he would have also liked to bowl first on this surface, "We would have bowled first. It's fine, we can't be thinking about the toss too much, so let's play some good cricket today. There's nothing we wanted to change from the last game, just one or two overs here and there would have done us the job. We needed an extra batsman in these kinds of tracks, so Marcus Stoinis comes in. Tom Curran is out. We are in a great frame of mind, always exciting to play together, always having a lot of fun, looking to have fun during the match also."

Playing XIs:

Delhi Capitals: Prithvi Shaw, Shikhar Dhawan, Shreyas Iyer, Rishabh Pant(w/c), Marcus Stoinis, Shimron Hetmyer, Axar Patel, Ravichandran Ashwin, Kagiso Rabada, Avesh Khan, Anrich Nortje.

Kolkata Knight Riders: Shubman Gill, Venkatesh Iyer, Rahul Tripathi, Nitish Rana, Eoin Morgan(c), Dinesh Karthik(w), Sunil Narine, Shakib Al Hasan, Lockie Ferguson, Shivam Mavi, Varun Chakravarthy.