Kolkata Knight Riders skipper Gautam Gambhir won the toss and decided to field first in the season-opener against Gujarat Lions at Saurashtra Cricket Association Stadium, Rajkot.

Here is what the captains said:

Gautam Gambhir:

“We will bowl. Looks like a good wicket, will not change much. We have got Trent Boult, Chris Woakes, Sunil Narine and Chris Lynn as our overseas players. We will look to restrict them to a modest score and chase it down.”

Suresh Raina:

“We don’t know much about this wicket, will look to do well and put a big score on the board. We have a pretty good batting unit, will look to do well with our four overseas batting stars. Hopeful about a good game tonight.”

Both the teams, meanwhile, would be looking to get off to a winning start as they would be keen to go a step further this time around after making it to the last four in the previous season.

Gujarat Lions, in their second IPL season, will be a eyeing a hat-trick of wins against the visitors who will be without their maverick all-rounder Andre Russell.

On the other hand, Gautam Gambhir’s men would be keen to win their opening game of the season for the fifth time in a row.

Here is the playing XI of both the teams:

Kolkata Knight Riders:

Gautam Gambhir(c), Robin Uthappa(w), Manish Pandey, Chris Lynn, Yusuf Pathan, Suryakumar Yadav, Chris Woakes, Piyush Chawla, Kuldeep Yadav, Sunil Narine, Trent Boult

Gujarat Lions:

Brendon McCullum, Dwayne Smith, Jason Roy, Suresh Raina(c), Aaron Finch, Dinesh Karthik(w), Manpreet Gony, Praveen Kumar, Shadab Bashir Jakati, Dhawal Kulkarni, Shivil Koushik