The 38th game of the 2026 Indian Premier League will feature Lucknow Super Giants locking horns with Kolkata Knight Riders. Bharat Ratna Shri Atal Bihari Vajpayee Ekana Cricket Stadium in Lucknow will be hosting this game as the tournament moves into its business end. It’s a must-win game for both sides if they want to keep their playoff hopes alive. It has been a tough season for Lucknow Super Giants. They have managed only two wins out of the seven games played and their failures in the powerplay are the main reason for that. They have had big overseas names in their squad but failed to utilize it in the top order of the batting lineup. They have a good bowling attack which can be lethal on small surfaces. LSG will be eager to end their losing streak at home and give their fans something to celebrate. Kolkata Knight Riders are not in a better position as they are at the bottom of the table with only one win in seven games played. Their batting has been very inconsistent while they failed to finish matches from very good positions. Their only positive this season is that key Indian players are in some good form in the recent matches and it is to be seen if the likes of Pathirana help them seal close encounters. KKR will hope that this victory over RR gives them the much-needed boost to perform well. At the toss, Lucknow have won and chose to bowl first. Here's what the captains said at the toss: Rishabh Pant: "We're gonna bowl first, we want to again put the opposition in the back first and just find the answer as a batting group. Just one change, Linde comes in for Siddharth. Definitely we are working towards it, when there are lots of leaders in the family, you have to find a way and we are pretty close to finding ways and we gotta just stick together, stay tight, because we know that we can turn around the season from here and I'm pretty confident to make it happen. See definitely any kind of confidence is definitely needed and we'll take that one too." Ajinkya Rahane: "We were looking to bat first. At the moment, you know, for us, it's important to see how we are playing as a team. So the bowling unit's, I felt coming well, nicely together. The reason we wanted to bat first because, you know, giving that freedom to our batting unit so they can bat freely and then as I said, the bowling unit is coming together. But again, in the end, you've got to just assess the conditions quickly, whether you bat first or bowl first and win those crucial moments in these power plays. We're going with the same team. The must needed week off for us, all of us, especially that victory was really important from team point of view. The morale was really good. But obviously the last two, three days, sitting back and sitting together as a team, reflecting on last seven games, what are the things we did right, the areas which we can improve. It's always about the improvement, each and every game. We had a good couple of practice sessions, looking forward to the game." Also Read | Watch: Sanju Samson’s Lightning-Fast Stumping of Gill Leaves Fans Forgetting MS Dhoni LSG vs KKR Playing XI Lucknow Super Giants (Playing XI): Aiden Markram, Mitchell Marsh, Rishabh Pant(w/c), Nicholas Pooran, Ayush Badoni, Mukul Choudhary, George Linde, Mohammed Shami, Prince Yadav, Digvesh Singh Rathi, Mohsin Khan LSG Impact subs: Himmat Singh, Akshat Raghuvanshi, Abdul Samad, Avesh Khan, Manimaran Siddharth Kolkata Knight Riders (Playing XI): Ajinkya Rahane(c), Tim Seifert(w), Cameron Green, Angkrish Raghuvanshi, Rovman Powell, Rinku Singh, Sunil Narine, Ramandeep Singh, Anukul Roy, Vaibhav Arora, Kartik Tyagi KKR Impact subs: Manish Pandey, Finn Allen, Tejasvi Singh, Navdeep Saini, Varun Chakravarthy