Play was stopped at Eden Gardens with Kolkata Knight Riders at 25 for 2 in 3.4 overs as rain intensified. The drizzle, which had lingered over the past two days, suddenly grew heavier, forcing the umpires to take the players off and bring on the covers.<\/p>\n
The interruption came at a tricky moment for KKR, who were already dealing with early damage. Xavier Bartlett struck twice to leave the hosts under pressure, despite a brisk start in the opening over.<\/p>\n
Pathan questions toss call<\/strong><\/p>\n The situation has also raised questions about the decision at the toss. Former India all-rounder Irfan Pathan ( in broadcast) criticised KKR\u2019s call to bat first, pointing to the rain threat and the nature of the surface.<\/p>\n He said opting to set a target at this venue, especially with interruptions likely, did not align with conditions. With chasing generally preferred at Eden Gardens, the decision has come under scrutiny as the game unfolds.<\/p>\n Missing bowlers add to concerns<\/strong><\/p>\n KKR went into the match without Varun Chakaravarthy and Sunil Narine due to injury and illness. With other bowling options also unavailable and Cameron Green not bowling, the side appeared short on depth.<\/p>\n Navdeep Saini and Rovman Powell were brought in as replacements, but the absence of the two frontline spinners has left a gap. It is the first time since 2019 that KKR have played without both. With rain continuing to disrupt play, the early call at the toss could have a lasting impact on the outcome.<\/p>\n Kolkata Knight Riders<\/b>\u00a0(Playing XI): Finn Allen, Ajinkya Rahane(c), Cameron Green, Angkrish Raghuvanshi(w), Rovman Powell, Rinku Singh, Ramandeep Singh, Anukul Roy, Navdeep Saini, Vaibhav Arora, Kartik Tyagi<\/p>\n Punjab Kings<\/b>\u00a0(Playing XI): Prabhsimran Singh(w), Shreyas Iyer(c), Cooper Connolly, Nehal Wadhera, Shashank Singh, Marcus Stoinis, Marco Jansen, Xavier Bartlett, Vijaykumar Vyshak, Arshdeep Singh, Yuzvendra Chahal<\/p>\n Impact Substitutes<\/u><\/b>:<\/p>\n Kolkata Knight Riders<\/b>: Manish Pandey, Tejasvi Dahiya, Rahul Tripathi, Saurabh Dubey, Blessing Muzarabani<\/p>\n Punjab Kings<\/b>: Vishnu Vinod, Praveen Dubey, Priyansh Arya, Harpreet Brar, Suryansh Shedge<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Play was stopped at Eden Gardens with Kolkata Knight Riders at 25 for 2 in 3.4 overs as rain intensified\u2026.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":473,"featured_media":47411,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-47420","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-ipl"],"reading_time":"2 min read","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47420","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/473"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=47420"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47420\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":47422,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47420\/revisions\/47422"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/47411"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47420"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=47420"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=47420"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}