Punjab Kings moved up to the top of the points table with a point yielded from a washed-out clash against Kolkata Knight Riders at the Eden Gardens on Monday night.

Persistent rain meant that the action was curtailed to only 22 deliveries, wherein Shreyas Iyer’s men managed to scalp two wickets after KKR won the toss and surprisingly opted to bat first under cloudy skies.

It's now a race against time to prepare the ground for a 5-over contest by 11.14. Covers getting peeled of

India’s batting talisman and former captain Virat Kohli has had an illustrious career in all three forms of the game and can arguably be touted as the greatest Indian batter of the 2010s era, where in red-ball and white-ball cricket, he produced some epochal innings that helped India win matches both at home and overseas.

Recalling how Kohli was when he was young, former England captain Kevin Pietersen, who played with him at RCB in 2009, said that he was “very inquisitive” and realised that he was set for bigger things in his career. (Read more)

Having suffered three straight losses, Chennai Super Kings is likely to receive a huge boost with the injured MS Dhoni and Dewald Brevis nearing full fitness before their next fixture against Delhi Capitals on Saturday. The Indian Express understands that the former captain, who led the franchise to five IPL titles, is likely to have a fitness test in the next couple of days and if he passes it, will take the field against Delhi at Chepauk.

Dhoni, who injured his calf during the preparatory camp, hasn’t featured so far in the IPL. The 44-year-old, hasn’t been travelling with the team to away fixtures and was also absent at Chepauk for the home game against Punjab Kings last Friday. While he has been regularly attending the training sessions with the team, due to the protocols he hasn’t travelled to the stadium on match days. (Read more from Venkata Krishna B)

No strong wind at the moment. Just persistent rain

Cut-off time for a 5-over game is 11.14 pm

People sitting on the covers to keep them in place

Gotten heavier. Covers firmly in place.

They are being brought back again as rain returns. Still a drizzle.

Not a heavy downpour though

Xavier Bartlett has picked up two wickets in his first over. The ball was moving a bit, and he presented a superb seam position. First, it was Finn Allen who played the erratic shot and got the edge to the keeper. Green started shakily on the first ball, which he got away with, but did not have the same luck the following delivery, which he bowled almost a Test match length, which the batter edged to the keeper. They are in a lot of trouble here, KKR. Bartlett is bowling really well and is looking in top rhythm.

"Rain clouds around, so that is part of the conditions that teams would assess. What we also have is quite a few covers on the outfield, so we’re hoping, fingers crossed, that we will get an on-time start. Before we look at the pitch on the 22-yard slab of turf, let’s visit the boundary dimensions - straight down the ground is 74 metres, and the shortest square boundary is 64. Not much of a difference square, so teams will take that into consideration. Now, when we look at this pitch. You do see live green grass here. You see live green grass throughout the majority of the surface. Here, just inside the crease lines, you do see bare patches. There will be bare patches. That’ll be visible. But these are on the front foot, and these shouldn’t play too much of an impact or of a role in this evening’s fixture. High-scoring ground, very, very high-scoring ground, and that’s because of the colour of the grass and how much grass there is. Take it back to the good old days in the IPL. It used to spin. It used to go all over the place. Low-scoring. Narine used to do his magic. The new Varun Chakravarthy on the screen used to do his magic. But here, there’s more grass, so you’ve got to be very, very good with the toss. We saw teams batting first a majority of the times. Already this season, SRH batted first, scored in excess of 200, and they went on to win. So, with the weather around, if you think the rain is going to come, you might want to bat second, but I’m sure this surface, no fine line between bat and ball. It’s bat dominating for sure tonight,"

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.

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 wins toss and opts to bat first vs Punjab

The franchise is already without key pacers -- Matheesha Pathirana, Harshit Rana, Akash Deep and Mustafizur Rahman. While Mustafizur was removed from the KKR roster on BCCI's directive amid political tensions with Bangladesh, Harshit and Akash Deep were ruled out due to injuries. 'Slinger' Pathirana, another high-profile acquisition, is also recovering from a niggle and yet to join the squad.

Covers coming off

“I think I have one of the best strike-rates so far from 2023, and people who are talking about me are probably not watching the game, and they have a certain agenda against me. They don’t like me playing; they don’t like to watch me play. The amount of success I got, I guess, they are jealous. I am not too worried. You guys know what I am doing. Just one bad inning, not a bad innings, but my intent was there. Sometimes, as a batter, you don’t get that rhythm, you don’t get that flow,” he said.

KKR might be forced to bench their big buy Cameron Green who hasn't shone with the bat while Cricket Australia still hasn't cleared him to bowl. So KKR might look to take a punt at Seifert here as Green is just currently playing as a pure batter. Punjab, meanwhile, will likely go for an unchanged team.

Tosses won at home:  4/6

Matches Won after Toss win at home: 1/4; Bat 1st: 1/2

The seasonal Kalbaishakhi storms are set to make an appearance this week from April 5 to April 9. While this has brought relief from the punishing heat for the rest of the city, it is bad news for KKR as this means that their next game against LSG is threatened as well. A steady drizzle had washed out the training sessions of both teams on Sunday, but the forecast is better for Monday.

There has been persistent cloud cover since morning following a “low-pressure trough stretching from Bihar to Manipur, passing over North Bengal, Assam and Bangladesh”, as per the IMD. “The state is likely to witness another round of Kalbaishakhi storms, with the possibility of hail and thunderstorms from Sunday through Thursday. The intensity and spread of rainfall are expected to peak on Tuesday and Wednesday,” the IMD said.

"You'll obviously see him bowl in training as you can't all of a sudden just bowl in the game. So that's why he's been working away since he got here, working himself back to match fitness and that takes time. I'd say the communication has been between us and Australian Cricket and I'm sure he's not far away from bowling in a match,"

Finn Allen, Ajinkya Rahane (C), Angkrish Raghuvanshi (WK), Cameron Green, Rinku Singh, Ramandeep Singh, Anukul Roy/Manish Pandey, Sunil Narine, Kartik Tyagi, Varun Chakaravarthy, Blessing Muzarabani, Vaibhav Arora

Hello and welcome to our live blog of the Kolkata Knight Riders taking on the Punjab Kings. While the former are yet to win a game, the latter are yet to lose one. Punjab are resuming from where they left off last season, and the same can be said about Kolkata, in fact, the performances so far seem like they have gone backwards.