Kolkata Knight Riders win toss, opt to bat first against Sunrisers Hyderabad in IPL 2023

Hyderabad: Kolkata Knight Riders skipper Nitish Rana won the toss and elected to bat first against Sunrisers Hyderabad at the Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium in the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2023 on Thursday.
Surnisers Hyderabad and Kolkata Knight Riders find themselves in a critical situation as both teams are stuck on 6 points. A loss could further take them away from the race of qualifying for the playoffs. Both teams would be keen to end the night with a victory. KKR skipper Nitish Rana said at the toss, "We'll bat first. Looks like a good wicket, hopefully, we'll post a good score and then restrict them. We're not thinking too much ahead, just have to take game-by-game. We have had injuries in many games, but they're back now. We're playing an extra batter due to the impact rule, need to get those 10-15 extra runs. Two changes - Jason is back in place of David Wiese, and Vaibhav Arora replaces Jagadeeshan."
SRH skipper Aiden Markram said at the toss, "We would have batted first as well, we have tended to do well with a score on the board. We need to start playing good consistent cricket and tonight's an opportunity, looking forward to a positive outcome. Batting needs to improve, bowling has been outstanding, but we've underperformed with the bat. A couple of changes in our 16 with Kartik Tyagi back in the group. He was injured for a while and is raring to have a go."
KKR (Playing XI): Rahmanullah Gurbaz(w), Jason Roy, Venkatesh Iyer, Nitish Rana(c), Andre Russell, Rinku Singh, Sunil Narine, Shardul Thakur, Vaibhav Arora, Harshit Rana, Varun Chakaravarthy.
SRH (Playing XI): Mayank Agarwal, Abhishek Sharma, Aiden Markram(c), Heinrich Klaasen(w), Harry Brook, Abdul Samad, Marco Jansen, Mayank Markande, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Kartik Tyagi, T Natarajan. (ANI)