Kolkata Knight Riders have won the toss and have opted to field

The two skippers are out in the middle and it's toss time..

Spencer Johnson: Yeah it is new colors for me this year. But like I have said I have settled in nicely, we have a great group of players and I am coming off a beautiful year last year, I am excited to be here. I have played enough T20 now to know that conditions change, if I don't quite get it right in my first over then I have three overs to contribute, so playing more in such conditions will help me grow as a player. Last year I was bowling outside the powerplay and through the middle, I feel like my strengths are up front with the new ball, throwing the first punch and getting early wickets, you look at Boult, Starcy.. left-armers, they get wickets in the first over, that's hopefully what I can do. It is going to be hot for both innings, I like to get the bowling done and hopefully we can restrict them to a decent total then our batters can do what they can do.

Pitch Report | Deep Dasgupta and Matthew Hayden: First day game here in the City of Joy. It is a fresh pitch, a little extreme on one side of the square so the dimensions are lopsided. On the right is a 57m boundary, while the left side is 70m. Straight is 69m. It is an interesting pitch which has a lot of grass, but when you touch it, it does feel rigid like the lawn mover has gone through it and cut the tops of it. Will it grip and hold during the day? Maybe it will and that could make it a little tricky to bat. There are some overhead conditions, doubt it will produce rain though. This surface won’t change much but as a captain, you’d rather bat on it and take on the short boundary. The captains need to be well aware of that. This has been a high scoring venue, but since it is a day game, it might not be as high as we are used to.

The top-order batters of Lucknow Super Giants have been in supreme form and their bowling which is fairly inexperienced has gelled together as a unit. Things are slowly starting to fall in place for the Giants despite injuries to their fast bowlers like Mayank and Mohsin. In Digvesh Rathi and Ravi Bishnoi they have two strike spinners, while the fast bowling unit looks a lot better in the presence of Shardul, Avesh and Akash Deep. For the Knight Riders, their openers are yet to fire together, so that's an area of concern. They have plenty of all-rounders though, so the team looks well-balanced despite their opening woes. Being an afternoon game, the spinners from both the teams might get some help. Stay around for the toss and teams..

14:15 Local Time, 08:45 GMT, 14:15 IST:

Preview by Aayush Puthran

The contest between Kolkata Knight Riders and Lucknow Super Giants offers a unique rivalry in the Indian Premier League - one between the fans of a football club [Mohun Bagan also owned by owners of LSG] and a cricket team. Last year, the franchise and the club expressed their displeasure over each other's efforts to claim turf at the Eden Gardens. This year, it shouldn't be any different.

Amidst chatter about the lack of crowd in one of India's most iconic stadiums, this contest on Tuesday presents an opportunity to test the weight of this passionate rivalry. But beyond the question of who brings the fans to the stadium is a bigger question: which of the two teams, scratchy and middling so far this season, will pick momentum and put themselves among the table toppers.

Despite the inconsistent performances so far, both teams find themselves in a position to move to the top-four by the end of Tuesday's contest. For that, they would need some of their most potent weapons to regain their prime touch, especially in the batting department.

While for KKR their biggest concern would be the lack of power-starts from their openers, which was a pivotal feature of their tournament-winning campaign last season, for LSG there are bigger concerns. Even as both Sunil Narine and Quinton de Kock have one big innings to show, there is still more dependency than deliverance from them so far at the top.

For LSG, the concerns are bigger. Rishabh Pant, their captain, has struggled to find his touch. Pant, who aggregated 446 runs at 40.55 (SR: 155.40) with just one single-digit score last season, has scored only 19 runs at a strike-rate of 59.37 in three outings this season. And on a surface, where the ball is expected to hold on a bit, shot-making is not going to get any easier.

Either way, despite having won their respective previous games rather convincingly, both teams have largely been rusty and far from gaining the momentum they would like. There are ample areas to fine-tune on before heading into the middle phase of the league stage.

If there is one place where they would want to accelerate find these perfect performances coming, it would be in front of their 'home' fans!

When: Tuesday, April 8, 2025, 3.30 PM

Where: Kolkata Knight Riders vs Lucknow Super Giants, Eden Gardens, Kolkata

What to expect: This contest is being played on a new pitch, but there is barely any tinge on green on the surface. Shahbaz Ahmed, the Bengal all-rounder who is playing for LSG this season, believes there will be assistance for slower bowlers. Whether there is enough will be enough turn or not, he is expecting the ball to hold a bit on the surface

Head-to-head: LSG has a slight 3-2 edge over KKR. But at Eden Gardens, the two teams have been 1-1.

Team Watch:

Kolkata Knight Riders:

Injuries/Unavailability: Anrich Nortje, who was 'close to full fitness' till the previous game, was seen bowling in full tilt ahead of the last game. However, no information has been provided on his availability for the game against LSG.

Tactics & Matchups: Sunil Narine has been one of the few spinners who has managed to keep Nicholas Pooran in check. The mystery spinner has conceded only 171 runs off 150 balls in T20s against the southpaw, which includes a maiden Super Over. Expect a fair bit of bowling by Narine while Pooran is in the middle.

Probable XII: Quinton de Kock/Rahmanullah Gurbaz (wk), Sunil Narine, Ajinkya Rahane (c), Angkrish Raghuvanshi, Venkatesh Iyer, Rinku Singh, Andre Russell, Ramandeep Singh, Moeen Ali, Harshit Rana, Varun Chakravarthy, Vaibhav Arora

Lucknow Super Giants:

Injuries/Unavailability: Mayank Yadav is ruled out of the contest as he is still recovering from his injury

Tactics & Matchups: KKR have four left-handers in their top-six, which could push LSG to hand a greater role with the ball to Aiden Markram.

Probable XII: Mitchell Marsh, Aiden Markram, Nicholas Pooran, Rishabh Pant (c/wk), Ayush Badoni, David Miller, Abdul Samad, Shardul Thakur, Akash Deep, Avesh Khan, Digvesh Rathi, Ravi Bishnoi

Did you know:

Six of the last seven afternoon games played at Eden Gardens have been won by the chasing side.

KKR have the second worst average (15) and the second worst run rate (6.31) for the opening partnership in IPL this season. Only CSK have been worse than them on both parameters

LSG have picked most wickets in the powerplay so far this season, whereas KKR have picked just five wickets -the joint second least by a team

What they said:

Looking at the pitch here (at Eden Gardens for tomorrow's game), and having seen how the pitch played here in the last game, it seems as if the ball will hold up a bit. I'm not sure if it'll turn a lot, but it will remain slow for sure. That's good for the bowlers - Shahbaz Ahmed, LSG all-rounder

The pitch, hopefully, plays like it played in the last game. Of course it's a day game, so the pitch won't change much over 40 overs of cricket. We've prepared ourselves to play in any sort of surface. But if the surface is similar to the one we had in the last game, then hopefully that will be a benefit for us - Ottis Gibson, KKR assistant coach

Squads:

Lucknow Super Giants Squad: Aiden Markram, Mitchell Marsh, Nicholas Pooran, Rishabh Pant(w/c), Ayush Badoni, David Miller, Abdul Samad, Shardul Thakur, Digvesh Singh Rathi, Akash Deep, Avesh Khan, Ravi Bishnoi, Prince Yadav, Shahbaz Ahmed, Manimaran Siddharth, Akash Maharaj Singh, Mayank Yadav, Shamar Joseph, Arshin Kulkarni, Yuvraj Chaudhary, RS Hangargekar, Aryan Juyal, Matthew Breetzke, Himmat Singh

Kolkata Knight Riders Squad: Quinton de Kock(w), Sunil Narine, Ajinkya Rahane(c), Venkatesh Iyer, Rinku Singh, Angkrish Raghuvanshi, Moeen Ali, Andre Russell, Ramandeep Singh, Harshit Rana, Varun Chakaravarthy, Manish Pandey, Vaibhav Arora, Luvnith Sisodia, Anukul Roy, Rovman Powell, Anrich Nortje, Mayank Markande, Spencer Johnson, Rahmanullah Gurbaz, Chetan Sakariya