Kolkata Knight Riders captain Eoin Morgan won the toss and opted to bat first against Chennai Super Kings in Abu Dhabi.
CSK are second on the table and KKR are fourth.
KKR have gone into the game unchanged while MS Dhoni announced that Dwayne Bravo has missed out and Sam Curran takes his place. MS Dhoni said Bravo has been rested as he had picked up a niggle in the Caribbean Premier League.
“We have one change, Curran comes in for Bravo. He had a few niggles in the CPL, so we need to make sure he doesn't develop them further. The support staff is very important. Having experienced players in the side helps. In IPL it's about managing the combinations,” Dhoni said.
“We are going to bat first, we don't have any changes. Will be a different challenge as it's a day game. There's more pace in the wicket as compared to the last year. In this sort of heat, it might get slower later,” Morgan said at the toss.
Chennai Super Kings (Playing XI): Ruturaj Gaikwad, Faf du Plessis, Moeen Ali, Ambati Rayudu, Suresh Raina, MS Dhoni(w/c), Ravindra Jadeja, Sam Curran, Shardul Thakur, Deepak Chahar, Josh Hazlewood
Kolkata Knight Riders (Playing XI): Shubman Gill, Venkatesh Iyer, Rahul Tripathi, Eoin Morgan(c), Nitish Rana, Dinesh Karthik(w), Andre Russell, Sunil Narine, Lockie Ferguson, Varun Chakaravarthy, Prasidh Krishna
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