It’s the battle of the heavyweights tonight as Kolkata Knight Riders host the Rajasthan Royals in Match 31 of the Indian Premier League.

Both teams won their last games and occupy the top-two spots on the points table. RR lead the standings with 10 points but second-placed KKR can dethrone them if they win tonight.

RR stalwarts Jos Buttler and Ravichandran Ashwin are expected to play this game after missing the previous one due to injury.

This high-stakes encounter promises an exciting bat versus ball showdown, with Royals boasting the IPL’s most economical bowling attack while KKR ranks as the second most potent batting unit this season.

Pitch Conditions

Eden Gardens has only hosted two games so far this season – a run-fest in late March where KKR narrowly defeated Sunrisers Hyderabad, and a lower-scoring outing on Sunday afternoon when KKR brushed aside a diffident LSG unit.

It’s not a large enough sample size to draw too many conclusions from, but by and large the ball tends to come onto the bat here, and the outfield is lightning quick.

Squads:

Rajasthan Royals Squad: Sanju Samson(w/c), Riyan Parag, Dhruv Jurel, Shimron Hetmyer, Rovman Powell, Tanush Kotian, Keshav Maharaj, Trent Boult, Avesh Khan, Kuldeep Sen, Yuzvendra Chahal, Yashasvi Jaiswal, Tom Kohler-Cadmore, Shubham Dubey, Navdeep Saini, Abid Mushtaq, Ravichandran Ashwin, Jos Buttler, Sandeep Sharma, Nandre Burger, Donovan Ferreira, Kunal Singh Rathore

Kolkata Knight Riders Squad: Philip Salt(w), Sunil Narine, Venkatesh Iyer, Shreyas Iyer(c), Angkrish Raghuvanshi, Andre Russell, Ramandeep Singh, Mitchell Starc, Harshit Rana, Vaibhav Arora, Varun Chakaravarthy, Suyash Sharma, Anukul Roy, Manish Pandey, Rahmanullah Gurbaz, Rinku Singh, Allah Ghazanfar, Sakib Hussain, Sherfane Rutherford, Chetan Sakariya, Nitish Rana, Srikar Bharat, Dushmantha Chameera