IPL 2021: Kolkata Knight Riders vs Royal Challengers Bangalore Toss Report; RCB bat first, Playing 11

Abu Dhabi, September 20: Royal Challengers and Kolkata Knight Riders on Monday (September) came face to face in an IPL 2021 match at the Sheikh Zayed Stadium with different goals staring at them.

Royal Challengers Bangalore made a fine start winning the toss and electing to bat first. The RCB under Virat Kohli, who is playing his 200th T20 match, will be eager to win this match and join Chennai Super Kings on 12 points and a step closer to the IPL 2021 play-off.

However, the KKR under Eoin Morgan will desperately want to win this match and get a move on from the current 7th spot that they find themselves in.

Another slip up will badly affect their chances to making it to the knockouts or at least a hazardous one.

For KKR, opener Venkatesh Iyer made his debut while for RCB Lankan leggie Wanindu Hasaranga and wicketkeeper batsman K Srikar Bharat made their debuts.

Playing 11

Royal Challengers Bangalore: Virat Kohli(c), Devdutt Padikkal, Srikar Bharat, Glenn Maxwell, AB de Villiers(w), Wanindu Hasaranga, Sachin Baby, Kyle Jamieson, Mohammed Siraj, Harshal Patel, Yuzvendra Chahal

Kolkata Knight Riders: 1 Venkatesh Iyer (making his debut), 2 Shubman Gill, 3 Nitish Rana, 4 Rahul Tripathi, 5 Eoin Morgan, 6 Andre Russell, 7 Dinesh Karthik (wk), 8 Sunil Narine, 9 Lockie Ferguson, 10 Varun Chakravarthy, 11 Prasidh Krishna.

Captains speak

Virat Kohli: "We will bat first. Looks like a good pitch, the grass will hold it together, will slow down as the game progresses. This one's special, we promised back in May that we'll play for the Covid warriors, here it is - we''' auction this uniform and the proceed will go to them. Two debutants for us - KS Bharat and Wanindu Hasranga"

Eoin Morgan: "Pitch Looks really good, it should stay pretty similar for the entire length of the game. Hoping that the performances will change in this phase of the tournament. It's been challenging, but we are happy to be back here."