In the 51st match of the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2026, Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) won the toss and invited Delhi Capitals (DC) to bat first. Under the captaincy of Ajinkya Rahane, KKR has won the last 3 matches. In such a situation, KKR has not made any changes in its team. On the other hand, DC has come with two changes.

Mukesh Kumar has been included in the playing XI by excluding T Natarajan. Vipraj Nigam has got a chance in place of Karun Nair. Kuldeep Yadav is in the list of impact players. When DC comes out to defend the total, then he can be seen bowling.

Both teams have a ‘do or die’ situation.

KKR is at eighth place in the table with 7 points from 9 matches. Whereas DC has 8 points in 10 matches. For both the teams to reach the playoffs, it is necessary to win every match.

DC started the season with two consecutive wins but have been struggling since then. The team captained by Akshar Patel has been able to achieve only one win in the last 5 matches. KKR’s story is opposite. He had lost the first 5. Now she has scored a hat-trick of victories.

KKR is ahead by 19-15 in head to head record

KKR and DC have faced each other in 35 matches so far, in which KKR is leading 19-15. Even in the last 3 matches, KKR has the upper hand. KKR has a lead of 3-0 here also. DC’s last win against KKR was in IPL 2023.

Playing XI of both the teams:

Delhi Capitals – KL Rahul (wicketkeeper), Pathum Nissanka, Sameer Rizvi, Tristan Stubbs, Nitish Rana, Axar Patel (captain), Ashutosh Sharma, Lungi Ngidi, Mitchell Starc, Vipraj Nigam, Mukesh Kumar

Impact Player Options – Kuldeep Yadav, Karun Nair, Abhishek Porel, T Natarajan, David Miller

Kolkata Knight Riders – Ajinkya Rahane (captain), Angkrish Raghuvanshi (wicketkeeper), Cameron Green, Rovman Powell, Manish Pandey, Rinku Singh, Sunil Narayan, Anukul Roy, Karthik Tyagi, Vaibhav Arora, Varun Chakraborty.

Impact Player Options – Finn Allen, Ramandeep Singh, Tejasvi Singh, Navdeep Saini, Tim Seifert