Royal Challengers Bangalore skipper Virat Kohli has won the toss and elected to bat first in the team's opening fixture of the UAE leg of IPL 2021.
Sri Lanka's Wanindu Hasaranga is making his IPL debut, for RCB while K S Bharat too has been awarded his maiden RCB cap.
Eoin Morgan's KKR has Venkatesh Iyer making his debut with Sunil Narine, Kieron Pollard and Lockie Ferguson are the four overseas players
Virat said the grass covering on the pitch was there to hold the surface together and added that he believed the pitch will slow down as the game progresses.
Kohli, playing his 200th IPL match, said that Monday's match is special for his team due to wearing blue jerseys, as a mark of tribute for frontline workers during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Playing XIs
KKR Playing XI: Venkatesh Iyer, Shubman Gill, Nitish Rana, Rahul Tripathi, Eoin Morgan (captain), Andre Russell, Dinesh Karthik (wicket-keeper), Sunil Narine, Lockie Ferguson, Varun Chakravarthy and Prasidh Krishna
RCB Playing XI: Virat Kohli (captain), Devdutt Padikkal, KS Bharat (wicket-keeper), Glenn Maxwell, AB de Villiers, Sachin Baby, Wanindu Hasaranga, Kyle Jamieson, Harshal Patel, Mohammed Siraj and Yuzvendra Chahal.
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