The fifth edition of Karnataka Premier League (KPL) will kickstart on Friday, September 1 when Hubli Tigers and Belagavi Panthers go head to head at the MA Chidambaram Stadium in Bengaluru.
A grand opening ceremony, which will feature actor Puneet Rajkumar, actor Sharmila Mandre, singer Sangeetha Raju among others, will also be held right ahead of the opener.
Following the off-field action, the focus will be on the skippers of both the sides as they will be at the helm of squads that have undergone considerable changes following the auction earlier this month.
Sreenath Aravind, who was part of the Hubli setup last season, will be leading the Belgavi side this year. The Indian Premier League veteran will bank on India international Stuart Binny and Karnataka mainstay Krishnappa Gowtham to deliver.
While Manish Pandey is also part of the team, the 27-year-old will miss major part of the tournament due to his commitments with the national team, which is currently touring Sri Lanka.
On the other hand, Karnataka Ranji Trophy skipper Vinay Kumar will lead Hubli's title charge in the upcoming season. A lot of focus will be on last season's top-scorer Mayank Agarwal, who will be up against his former team on Friday.
Notably, Mayank, who had featured in the IPL, was the only batsman to score a ton last season as he ended up with 414 runs at 103.50 last season. Kumar will want his go-to-man to replicate last season's form and a good show in the opener will serve as a big boost to the 26-year-old's confidence.
"It is a very well-balanced side, and anybody can make the playing XI from the whole squad. Most of them are youngsters, but they are motivated to play the Ranji Trophy and the IPL," Kumar spoke of the Hubli side, as quoted by KPL's official website.
When does the match start and how to watch it live
The opening ceremony of KPL season 6 will start at 5:45pm IST at the Chinnaswamy Stadium, Bengaluru. The opener between Hubli and Belgavi will start at 7pm IST.
India: TV: Star Sports 1/HD 1. Live streaming: Hotstar
Team News
Hubli
Squad: Vinay Kumar (c), Abhishek Sakuja, Abhishek Reddy, Rohith Gowda, Sharan Gouda, Ritesh Bhatkal, Anurag Bajpai, Dega Nischal, David Mathias, Kranthi Kumar, Praveen Dubey, Mayank Agarwal, Ishfaq Nazir Bhat, Swapnil Yelave, Aman Khan, Prithvi Varadarajan, S Shivaraj
Belgavi
Squad: Sreenath Aravind (c), Kishore Kamat, Manish Pandey, KN Bharath(w), Rakshith S, Sunil Kumar Jain, Krishnappa Gowtham, Satish Bharadwaj, Sharath BR, Anand Doddamani, Nitin Bhille, Stuart Binny, Mir Kaunan Abbas, Stallin Hoover, Darshan Machaiah
