{"id":49330,"date":"2026-04-19T15:10:07","date_gmt":"2026-04-19T09:40:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/?p=49330"},"modified":"2026-04-19T15:11:05","modified_gmt":"2026-04-19T09:41:05","slug":"ipl-2026-kkr-vs-rr-shimron-hetmyer-returns-as-rajasthan-royals-win-the-toss-and-opt-to-bat-first-against-kolkata-knight-riders","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/cricket\/ipl\/ipl-2026-kkr-vs-rr-shimron-hetmyer-returns-as-rajasthan-royals-win-the-toss-and-opt-to-bat-first-against-kolkata-knight-riders\/","title":{"rendered":"IPL 2026 KKR vs RR: Shimron Hetmyer returns as Rajasthan Royals win the toss and opt to bat first against Kolkata Knight Riders."},"content":{"rendered":"<p><b>Rajasthan Royals have won the toss and have opted to bat<\/b><\/p>\n<p><strong>Captains back plans as conditions favour spin<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Riyan Parag opted to bat for Rajasthan Royals, citing a dry surface and likely turn. He expects spinners to play a major role and said the team will stick to its approach.<\/p>\n<p>Ajinkya Rahane said Kolkata Knight Riders would have preferred to bat first but wants his batters to play with freedom. He added the bowling unit has done well in the middle and death overs.<\/p>\n<p><b><u>Kolkata Knight Riders Playing XI<\/u><\/b>: Tim Seifert (wk), Ajinkya Rahane (c), Cameron Green, Rovman Powell, Rinku Singh, Sunil Narine, Ramandeep Singh, Anukul Roy, Vaibhav Arora, Kartik Tyagi, Varun Chakaravarthy<\/p>\n<p><b><u>Rajasthan Royals Playing XI<\/u><\/b>: Yashasvi Jaiswal, Vaibhav Sooryavanshi, Dhruv Jurel (wk), Riyan Parag (c), Shimron Hetmyer, Donovan Ferreira, Ravindra Jadeja, Jofra Archer, Nandre Burger, Brijesh Sharma, Ravi Bishnoi<\/p>\n<p><b><u>Impact Substitutes<\/u><\/b>:<\/p>\n<p><b>Kolkata Knight Riders<\/b>: Manish Pandey, Finn Allen, Navdeep Saini, Angkrish Raghuvanshi, Tejasvi Dahiya<\/p>\n<p><b>Rajasthan Royals:<\/b>\u00a0Shubham Dubey, Sandeep Sharma, Ravi Singh, Yash Raj Punja, Lhuan-dre Pretorius<\/p>\n<p data-start=\"56\" data-end=\"323\"><strong>Pitch Report \u2013<\/strong> At <span class=\"hover:entity-accent entity-underline inline cursor-pointer align-baseline\"><span class=\"whitespace-normal\">Eden Gardens<\/span><\/span>, heat and dimensions are expected to shape play, with square boundaries varying sharply. The pitch has a light green cover, offering early pace and bounce, but conditions are expected to settle into a batting-friendly surface. Tactics with pace and variation, especially using angles and width, could be key as teams aim for fast starts<\/p>\n<p><strong>RR steady despite slip, KKR still searching for first win<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Rajasthan Royals remain well placed despite a setback against Sunrisers Hyderabad. Their top order was exposed by pace, but the structure is intact. The absence of Shimron Hetmyer was felt, and his return should strengthen the middle. One loss in a long tournament is not a concern yet.<\/p>\n<p>Kolkata Knight Riders are still winless and under pressure early in the season. Ajinkya Rahane\u2019s side has struggled across departments, especially with pace bowling. Matheesha Pathirana has joined but may not start yet, while the omission of Blessing Muzarabani despite recent form has raised questions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Rajasthan Royals have won the toss and have opted to bat Captains back plans as conditions favour spin Riyan Parag\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":473,"featured_media":48127,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-49330","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\/49330","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=49330"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49330\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":49334,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49330\/revisions\/49334"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/48127"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=49330"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=49330"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=49330"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}