"So that the crowd can see Chris [Gayle] bat early," said Adam Gilchrist when asked why Kings XI Punjab had chosen to bowl in Bangalore. Jokes aside, though, on a flat pitch surrounded by a small outfield in Bangalore, no total is safe, and both teams would rather chase.
The big news at the toss was that Zaheer Khan was fit to finally play his first game of this IPL. He replaced Abhimanyu Mithun. Royal Challengers Bangalore, tied on the fourth spot with Sunrisers Hyderabad but back to Bangalore where they are yet to lose this season, made three other changes. Murali Kartik, Ravi Rampaul and Saurabh Tiwary made way for Muttiah Muralitharan, Arun Karthik and Lokesh Rahul. The Murali-for-Kartik switch might have been down to three specialist left-hand batsmen in the Kings XI top six, but to accommodate Murali, an overseas players, Rampaul had to sit out.
Kings XI, who need to win all their remaining games and then pray and hope other results miraculously go their way, made three changes. Praveen Kumar missed out on playing at his former home ground, losing out to Manpreet Gony. Azhar Mahmood came back, replacing Harmeet Singh. Manan Vohra took Luke Pomersbach's place
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