Chennai, Apr 8: Defending champions Chennai Super Kings have won the toss and elected to bowl first against Kolkata Knight Riders in match 22 of IPL 2024 at the MA Chidambaram Stadium here on Monday evening.

After back-to-back wins at Chepauk, CSK lost to Delhi Capitals and Sunrisers Hyderabad on the road to fourth place in the points table. Now on their return to home, they seek to get back to winning ways against second-placed KKR, who have won three matches in a row and are yet to lose a game in the competition.

CSK led 7-3 in the head-to-head record against KKR at Chepauk. But the last time these two teams met in Chennai last year, KKR won comfortably. The pitch for Monday’s clash is the one where CSK defeated the Royal Challengers Bengaluru by six wickets in the tournament opener.

After winning the toss, CSK skipper Ruturaj Gaikwad said pacer Matheesha Pathirana is still not available, while left-arm pacer Mustafizur Rahman is back. Shardul Thakur too comes in for Deepak Chahar, who has a niggle, and young right-handed batter Sameer Rizvi is also back in the playing eleven in place of left-arm pacer Mukesh Choudhary.

“It looks humid, we will bowl first. Hasn't dented our confidence, we have lost by a small margin. Definitely looking forward to getting a win in this game. They are playing a good brand of cricket, we want to keep things simple,” he said.

KKR captain Shreyas Iyer said his playing eleven is unchanged and added he would have looked to bowl first too. “We have assessed the conditions and adapted well, appreciate that. Everyone has stepped up and played fearless cricket. It's history, that was a different team. We just need to keep things simple, that's better. Our focus is on the present.”

Playing XIs:

Chennai Super Kings: Ruturaj Gaikwad (c), Rachin Ravindra, Ajinkya Rahane, Daryl Mitchell, Sameer Rizvi, Ravindra Jadeja, M.S. Dhoni (wk), Shardul Thakur, Mustafizur Rahman, Tushar Deshpande and Maheesh Theekshana

Impact Substitutes: Moeen Ali, Shivam Dube, Shaik Rasheed, Nishant Sindhu, Mitchell Santner

Kolkata Knight Riders: Philip Salt (wk), Sunil Narine, Venkatesh Iyer, Shreyas Iyer (captain), Angkrish Raghuvanshi, Andre Russell, Rinku Singh, Ramandeep Singh, Mitchell Starc, Vaibhav Arora and Varun Chakaravarthy

Impact Substitutes: Suyash Sharma, Anukul Roy, Manish Pandey, Rahmanullah Gurbaz, Sakib Hussain (IANS)

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