The onus would be on their famed batting line-up of Kohli, AB de Villiers and Glenn Maxwell to start firing once again and put pressure on the KKR batsmen.
A round-up of Day 1 of the Ranji Trophy matches played on Thursday.
KKR's Indian pacers Kamlesh Nagarkoti, Sandeep Warrier, Shivam Mavi and Prasidh Krishna stressed on how important the next few weeks were going to be for them to get back in the groove for the season.
KKR struggled for stability in the last edition in the UAE, while a change of captaincy at the halfway stage did not help them either.
Rajasthan Royals, struggling at the penultimate spot on the points table after two wins and four straight defeats, need something special against Sunrisers Hyderabad in Sunday's IPL match in Dubai.
It was an inauspicious start to the inaugural Day/Night Duleep Trophy match with a major floodlight malfunction grabbing more attention than Pink ball making its first class debut in India. A power failure saw two stoppages in play with the second one leading to lights going off completely in a couple of floodlight towers. There was a total 78 minutes of interruption due to power tripping in two towers in two separate phases.
On a roll post the IPL's resumption, Chennai Super Kings and Kolkata Knight Riders will look to continue their winning streak when they meet in a high-octane Indian Premier League encounter, in Abu Dhabi, on Sunday.
Pictures from the Saifai Mahotsav 2016.
For KKR, the biggest cause of concern will be the availability of big-hitter Andre Russell, who hurt his knee when he dived into the advertisement boards after missing a catch on Saturday.
Kolkata Knight Riders, who have lost their last four games, need to get back to winning ways and keep their hopes alive of making it to the play-offs.
590 cricketers -- including 370 Indian players and 220 overseas players -- will go under the hammer during the two-day mega auction in Bengaluru on February 12 and 13.
The 21-year-old had limited opportunity to showcase his skills in the last edition, but this time Kolkata Knight Riders coach Brendon McCullum has already given the opener's slot to him.
On a roll after back-to-back wins, the vintage Chennai Super Kings would look to extend their winning run when they clash with struggling Kolkata Knight Riders in their next IPL match in Mumbai on Wednesday.
Royal Challengers Bangalore will have rise to the occasion when they take on the already-eliminated Delhi Daredevil
Both DC and RCB have looked solid so far and are placed atop the standings with three wins out of four games each.
Karthik will be surrounded by cricketing brains all around him with the 2019 England World Cup winning skipper as his deputy, and New Zealand great Brendon McCullum as the head coach.
The breakdown in communication between national selectors, led by chairman Chetan Sharma, and the team management comprising skipper Virat Kohli over Bengal opener Abhimanyu Easwaran's contentious selection, is not the first such instance in Indian cricket.
World No 1 Elavenil Valarivan was on Sunday included in a 15-member Indian shooting contingent for the Tokyo Olympics at the expense of quota winner Chinki Yadav, who had claimed a gold in the Delhi World Cup last month.
5 instances when teams didn't cross the 70 run mark in 13 seasons.
It will be a test of Virat Kohli's tactical acumen against the ice-cool demeanour of Eoin Morgan when perennial underachievers Royal Challengers Bangalore clash with former champions Kolkata Knight Riders in the IPL Eliminator in Sharjah on Monday.
While SRH can't afford to slip up even one bit with five games remaining, RR would be hoping to continue the winning momentum and hope that their foreign recruits continue in good nick like they did in the match against CSK.
Images from the third One-Day International between India and Sri Lanka, in Colombo, on Friday.
Captain KL Rahul has been one of the few consistent performers in the formidable-looking Punjab batting unit and he once again led by example against MI
Manish, competing in the 67kg, is the only Indian Greco Roman grappler to have won a bout thus far. He won his qualification bout 3-1 against Aleksandrs of Latvia before losing the 1/16 round 0-9 to Japan's Tsuchika Shimoyamada.
Royal Challengers Bangalore will take on table-toppers Sunrisers Hyderabad in another must-win Indian Premier League encounter
In David Warner, who is back as captain for this season, the franchise has an inspirational leader and a superb batsman, who would like to lead from the front.
Inarguably the biggest gainer in the Grand Alliance, the CPI-ML, often working in the margins of mainstream politics, had 19 candidates in the fray, most of them students and youth leaders.
Captain Kane Williamson, all-rounder Vijay Shankar and comeback man Wriddhiman Saha will look to score in the key match.
Intercepted call records have shown that the accused in the Rs.10 crore cash-for-post railway bribery scam had hatched a conspiracy and held several meetings to fulfil their objective, the Central bureau of Investigation said.
Umesh Yadav starred with a match haul of 12/79 as defending champion Vidarbha routed Kerala by an innings and 11 runs shortly after lunch on Day 2 to storm into the Ranji Trophy final for the second year in a row.
What did Amar Singh and Mulayam Singh Yadav discuss at breakfast?
Mahendra Singh Dhoni's astute captaincy will be Chennai Super Kings' biggest weapon against a clinical Kolkata Knight Riders, whose troika of top-notch spinners promise to hold the aces in the high-octane Indian Premier League final in Dubai on Friday.
A woman in Bijnor, Uttar Pradesh has been arrested on charges of attempt to murder after a shocking video, uploaded by a social activist went viral on Monday, which showed her brutally beating up and torturing her elderly mother-in-law.
Look who all turned up for a special screening of Kedarnath on Wednesday night?
Mumbai Indians have an eight-match winning streak against Kolkata Knight Riders with an overall 18-5 head-to-head record.
Summary of all Ranji Trophy matches played on Saturday
Outside CM's residence, high drama was witnessed with youth supporters of Akhilesh assembling in large numbers to vent their fury.
Workload management of pacer Jasprit Bumrah and all-rounder Hardik Pandya will be the focus when Mumbai Indians take on a renamed Delhi Capitals in their first match of the 12th Indian Premier League in Mumbai on Sunday.
Around 1,200 protesters demanding scrapping of the amended citizenship act were detained on Thursday when they defied prohibitory orders imposed by the Delhi Police in Red Fort area. Internet, voice and messaging services by Airtel, Vodafone, Idea and Reliance Jio were suspended in parts of Delhi-NCR, in perhaps for the first time that the national capital experienced such restrictions.
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