Kolkata Knight Riders have undergone a disastrous start in their ongoing game against Kings XI Punjab in Abu Dhabi. After Rahul Tripathi departed cheaply in the third over, Nitish Rana perished without troubling the scorers by much as well. Nitish Rana had scored only a couple of runs before a terrible mix-up with Shubman Gill resulted in his downfall.
Shubman Gill, who struggled to find his rhythm initially, turned a delivery from left-arm seamer Arshdeep Singh to short-fine. At the non-striker’s end, Nitish Rana came all the way to the other end only to find out that his partner took only two steps to return. Nitish Rana departed to the pavilion distraught after Nicholas Pooran picked up the ball and dislodged the stumps easily.
Dinesh Karthik, the Kolkata Knight Riders’ captain, won the toss and elected to bat. The two-time champions made one change of benching Shivam Mavi to include Prasidh Krishna. On the other hand, Kings XI Punjab decided to slot Chris Jordan in place of the injured Sheldon Cottrell. The match against the Knight Riders is supposedly a do-or-die game for Kings XI Punjab as they are already in the eighth position in the points table, having lost five out of six games. On the other hand, the Knight Riders will look to rise further.