Dinesh Karthik
Dinesh Kartik has to marshal his troops against RR.IANS

Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) take on Rajasthan Royals (RR) in the Eliminator of Indian Premier League (IPL) 2018 at the Eden Gardens, Kolkata on Wednesday, May 23.

When is the Eliminator and how to watch it live in India

The IPL 2018 playoff between KKR and RR will start at 7 pm IST, 2:30 pm BST.

Star Sports 1, Star Sports Select 1, Star Sports 1 Hindi, Star Sports 1 Tamil will provide live television coverage of the match in India. Live stream will be available on Hotstar.

Playoff preview

KKR is clearly the overwhelming favourite going into the fixture, having already got the better of RR once in a group game at the Eden owing to their magnificent spin attack. With three wins on the trot, Kolkata Knight Riders are on a roll as they clinched the last-four berth for the sixth time.

To make it even easier for them, the Kolkata team is the only qualified one among the four teams to get the home advantage in the Eliminator. The winner of Wednesday's match will face Sunrisers Hyderabad, who succumbed to a loss in the second Qualifier -- also to be held in Kolkata -- which will decide the second entrant of the final.

Rajasthan will be without their two top English star performers -- Jos Buttler and Ben Stokes who were called for national duty. The team was written off by many, but they managed to upset Royal Challengers Bangalore in their final league game on May 19 to keep their slender hopes alive.

However, in their first knockout game of the season, the Ajinkya Rahane-led side has to rely on their resources.

The first hurdle for them will be to conquer the spin challenge of Sunil Narine, Piyush Chawla and Kuldeep Yadav who haunted them with an IPL career-best 4/20 in their six-wicket defeat in Kolkata.

Kuldeep has been among the finds of the tournament and his brilliant spin bowling may prove to be the difference between the two sides. Narine will hold the flow of runs in one end, as he has throughout the tournament.

The two teams have played each other 15 times, with KKR winning eight of those encounters while RR won seven. Of the six matches they played against each other at Eden Gardens, KKR won five.

IPL 2018 playoffs live stream and global TV listings

UK: TV - Sky Sports; Live stream - skysports.com, Sky Go

USA: Willow, Hotstar

Australia: Fox Sports

New Zealand: Sky Sport

Pakistan: TV - Geo Super; Live stream - www.geosuper.tv, www.geo.tv

Afghanistan: Lemar TV