12th Match

19:47 Local Time, 14:17 GMT: It's heavy enough to bring the covers on. The pitch is covered, then the runups and soon the groundstaff rush to cover the rest of the outfield. Remember, they cover the entire ground here like they do in Sri Lanka so you don't have to worry too much about outfield being too wet.

Xavier Bartlett to Ajinkya Rahane, no run, defended

Xavier Bartlett to Angkrish Raghuvanshi, 5 runs, what was a good ball, turns out to be five runs for the batter and KKR. Full delivery moving away, Raghuvanshi was kind of squared up and he pushed this off the outer half to mid-off. Shreyas took aim at the bowler's end to try a runout but he missed the target. There was no one at short fine leg or fine leg to back up. So Jansen cut across from the off-side and he tried to stop it with a slide. Ended up deflecting it away from Shashank Singh who was behind him to stop the ball. Runs away to the fence for four extra runs

Xavier Bartlett to Angkrish Raghuvanshi, no run, brilliant full outie finishing around off stump, Raghuvanshi gives the full face of the bat in his defence

Xavier Bartlett to Angkrish Raghuvanshi, no run, advances to kill the swing and defends it back to the bowler, who threatens to have a shy at the stumps to send the batter back

Arshdeep Singh to Angkrish Raghuvanshi, 1 run, wristed through backward square leg

Arshdeep Singh to Angkrish Raghuvanshi, no run, front foot across to over the sticks, sees the ball move across him and lets it pass

Slight drizzle

Arshdeep Singh to Ajinkya Rahane, 1 run, short of length delivery outside off stump, Rahane taps it towards point

Cameron Green’s scores in IPL 2026 \n18 (10) vs MI \n2 (2) vs SRH \n4 (2) vs PBKS

Arshdeep Singh to Angkrish Raghuvanshi, 1 run, short of length delivery on the stumps, Raghuvanshi knocks it to square leg

Arshdeep Singh to Angkrish Raghuvanshi, no run, good length delivery angling away, Raghuvanshi plays inside the line and lets it go last moment

Arshdeep Singh to Ajinkya Rahane, 1 run, good length delivery outside off stump, Rahane dabs to deep backward point

Angkrish Raghuvanshi, right handed bat, comes to the crease

Xavier Bartlett to Cameron Green, out Caught by Prabhsimran Singh!! It's another outie and it's another edge to Prabhsimran Singh. This guy is a gun bowler when it swings. Short of a length delivery moving away, Green pushes away from the body and nicked off. He was caught on the crease and caught fishing at the ball. It's not looking good for KKR already. Cameron Green c Prabhsimran Singh b Xavier Bartlett 4(2) [4s-1]

Xavier Bartlett to Cameron Green, THATS OUT!! Caught!!

Xavier Bartlett to Cameron Green, FOUR, outside edge and it escapes between slip and short third man. Outswinger outside off stump, Green pushes at it and gets away with the thick edge. Off the mark in streaky fashion

Cameron Green, right handed bat, comes to the crease

Xavier Bartlett to Finn Allen, out Caught by Prabhsimran Singh!! Finds the edge this time and the struggle ends. All Xavier Bartlett was doing this entire over was bowl short of a length and take it away from Allen. The NZ batter only wanted to belt every ball down the ground. This time he tries to loft through the line, gets an outside edge and it goes straight to Prabhsimran Singh. Finn Allen c Prabhsimran Singh b Xavier Bartlett 6(7) [4s-1]

Xavier Bartlett to Finn Allen, THATS OUT!! Caught!!

Xavier Bartlett to Finn Allen, no run, beaten! Swinging away outside off stump, Allen is struggling against the swinging ball it was bizarre to not see a slip first ball

Xavier Bartlett to Finn Allen, no run, comedy of errors! Firstly the batter moved a long way across to scoop, missed and the ball hit the body to float towards the keeper. Finn Allen thought he could sneak a bye without knowing where the ball was. Prabhsimran Singh ran forward and had a shy at the stumps but the bowler got in the way of the throw and it hit him

Xavier Bartlett to Finn Allen, no run, very close to a nick. That swings away from the right-hander and beats the outside edge through to the keeper. Allen was looking to swing through the line over the in-field. Missed the edge by a whisker

No slips for Bartlett who can swing the ball. That's interesting!

Xavier Bartlett, right-arm fast medium, comes into the attack

Arshdeep Singh to Finn Allen, 1 run, full toss again, Allen mistimes the drive. Mid-off cuts it off to the left

Arshdeep Singh to Finn Allen, FOUR, hands on head for Arshdeep Singh as he targetting the inswinging leg stump yorker. Allen manages to dig it out off the inside edge and it goes between the legs to the fine leg fence. Went as a low full toss and Allen got lucky there

Arshdeep Singh to Ajinkya Rahane, 1 run, swinging away outside off stump, Rahane dabs past point

Arshdeep Singh to Ajinkya Rahane, FOUR, that's guided and Jinks manages to guide it between slip and short third who is pretty fine as well. Let this full delivery come to bat, opened the face slightly to send it off the outer half of the bat and it raced away to the fence for the first boundary of the game

Arshdeep Singh to Finn Allen, 1 run, that's a very good first ball to Finn Allen. Swung away and opened up the batter. Because it was only around 129kph, Allen could adjust and fend to cover with soft hands

Arshdeep Singh to Ajinkya Rahane, 1 run, soft LBW check but too optimistic from Arshdeep. Ball swung too much and was going down the leg-side. The ump wasn't interested. Rahane looked to flick this length delivery behind square and got hit on the pad

Ajinkya Rahane and Finn Allen are at the crease. Ajinkya Rahane is on strike. Arshdeep Singh will open the attack

All set for the action then. Arshdeep with one slip

Here are the Impact substitutes for both the teams:

Punjab Kings Impact subs: Priyansh Arya, Suryansh Shedge, Vishnu Vinod, Pravin Dubey, Harpreet Brar

Kolkata Knight Riders Impact subs: Blessing Muzarabani, Manish Pandey, Tejasvi Singh, Rahul Tripathi, Saurabh Dubey

Teams:

Punjab Kings (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

Kolkata Knight Riders (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

Shreyas Iyer: Not at all, I was supposed to bowl as well. So kind of happy with the decision he took. (On working with Ricky Ponting) Our chemistry blossomed right from Delhi Capitals days. And he’s someone who gives all the sort of liberty and freedom to youngsters in the team. And the inspiration that he is himself, he has played brilliant cricket over the years. And we’ve looked upon him as one of the best cricketers in the world. So yeah, working beside him, it’s a phenomenal feeling. And under him at the same time at Punjab Kings, we know he’s got a plethora of ideas. So, I personally feel that it’s a blessing in disguise. Same team for us.

Ajinkya Rahane: We are going to bat first. Looks a good wicket, little bit on the drier side but it's a very good wicket and slightly less covering of grass as well. That’s the reason to put the runs on the board first. (What needs to be done to turn the tide in their favour?) It’s all about having that belief, having that confidence. Preparation-wise, we’ve been fantastic, each and every player. It’s all about winning the small moments in T20 format. It’s all about giving your best. And if you find that right moment, just give your best. So, as I said, we are confident as a unit and have that belief. (Get Sunil Narine up the order maybe?) We will think about that (smiles). Two changes, forced changes. Varun Chakaravarthy unfortunately got injured taking a catch in the last game and Sunil Narine is sick. Powell and Saini are in.

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