Ahmedabad, April 9 Gujarat Titans' stand-in captain Rashid Khan won the toss and elected to bat first against Kolkata Knight Riders in match 13th of IPL 2023 at the Narendra Modi Stadium, here on Sunday.
Both teams come into Sunday's game on the back of victories. While Gujarat beat Delhi Capitals by six wickets, Kolkata thrashed Royal Challengers Bangalore by 81 runs.
After winning the toss, Rashid said Hardik is a little unwell and the team didn't want to risk him for the match.
In place of Hardik, pace bowling all-rounder Vijay Shankar gets a look into the playing eleven.
"Looks like a fresh wicket. As a team we will try to play good cricket," said Rashid, who captained Gujarat once last year too in Hardik's absence.
Kolkata skipper Nitish Rana said Lockie Ferguson and N Jagadeesan come into the playing eleven in place of Tim Southee and Mandeep Singh.
"We wanted to bat first as well because of the weather and conditions. I felt defending might be easier. We had in our minds that batting first would be the way to go so that our spinners can make use of the surface in the second half but it's okay," Rana said.
Playing XIs:
Gujarat Titans: Shubman Gill, Wriddhiman Saha (wicketkeeper), B Sai Sudharsan, Vijay Shankar, David Miller, Rahul Tewatia, Abhinav Manohar, Rashid Khan (captain), Alzarri Joseph, Yash Dayal and Mohammed Shami
Substitutes: Josh Little, Jayant Yadav, Mohit Sharma, Matthew Wade, KS Bharat
Kolkata Knight Riders: Rahmanullah Gurbaz (wicketkeeper), N Jagadeesan, Nitish Rana (captain), Rinku Singh, Andre Russell, Sunil Narine, Shardul Thakur, Lockie Ferguson, Umesh Yadav, Suyash Sharma and Varun Chakravarthy
Substitutes: Mandeep Singh, Anukul Roy, Vaibhav Arora, Venkatesh Iyer, David Wiese
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