Xavier Doherty reported at the toss with bad news that the Hobart Hurricanes captain Tim Paine was ruled out after having had a dodgy prawn two days ago, but Doherty did win the toss and decided to bat first on a hard and flat surface. Dom Michael, the big-hitting left-hand batsman, came in in Paine's place. That was the only change Hurricanes made.
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Hurricanes' opponent, Kolkata Knight Riders, would have bowled first anyway. They were on an unbeaten streak of 13 matches, which is mainly built around their spinners, followed by solid chases. Their captain Gambhir said there was no reason to change the ploy, or the winning combination, which includes three frontline spinners in Sunil Narine, Kuldeep Yadav and Piyush Chawla.
Hobart Hurricanes 1 Ben Dunk (wk), 2 Dom Michael, 3 Aiden Blizzard, 4 Shoaib Malik, 5 Travis Birt, 6 Jonathan Wells, 7 Evan Gulbis, 8 Ben Hilfenhaus, 9 Xavier Doherty (capt.), 10 Ben Laughlin, 11 Doug Bollinger
Kolkata Knight Riders 1 Robin Uthappa (wk), 2 Gautam Gambhir (capt.), 3 Jacques Kallis, 4 Manish Pandey, 5 Yusuf Pathan, 6 Ryan ten Doeschate, 7 Suryakumar Yadav, 8 Andre Russell, 9 Piyush Chawla, 10 Sunil Narine, 11 Kuldeep Yadav
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