Why Matheesha Pathirana is not playing for KKR vs DC? When will he play for KKR in IPL 2026?

Kolkata Knight Riders have decided to go with an unchanged playing XI for the blockbuster encounter against Delhi Capitals at the Stadium in 2026. That means Finn Allen, Cameron Green, Rovman Powell and will be the four overseas players that will be playing for KKR tonight. Matheesha Pathirana, again, waited for his chance, again warming the bench.

The Sri Lanka international joined the squad about two weeks ago and since then he has trained with the squad but failed to break into the playing XI. Notably, he had a hamstring injury during the T20 World Cup and although SLC has given Pathirana the green light, KKR are not ready to risk him at the moment. Ahead of the clash against Delhi, mentor said that the cricketer is close to action but the time just isn’t right.

He is very close to playing but we don’t want to rush him because of the nature of his injury. We all want to see him back but timing is the key. “It's great to have someone with his quality back around the group," Bravo said at the pre-match press conference.

Meanwhile, KKR is yet to come out with any statement highlighting the nature of the injury or when he can return to action. The three-time champions have now recorded three wins on the trot and are also reluctant to change the winning combination. Thus Pathirana may have to wait for his chance.

KKR captain won the toss and decided to bowl first against Delhi. The veteran explained the reason behind the move and said that the wicket has varied a lot in recent times and hence, they want to analyse first and then try to chase it down.

"We're gonna bowl first. The last 3-4 games we have seen, it's been kind of very different games, 264, 160, the low scoring game against RCB as well, so I thought it's very important to see the wicket, see how it's playing and then it becomes easier to bat on. But having said that, no winning the toss, losing the toss, it’s all about playing good cricket of 40 overs,” said Rahane.

Ajinkya Rahane (c), Angkrish Raghuvanshi (wk), Cameron Green, Rovman Powell, Rinku Singh, Sunil Narine, Anukul Roy, Kartik Tyagi, Vaibhav Arora, Varun Chakaravarthy

Pathum Nissanka (wk), Nitish Rana, Sameer Rizvi, Tristan Stubbs, Axar Patel (c), Ashutosh Sharma, Vipraj Nigam, Mitchell Starc, , Mukesh Kumar