Toss Punjab Kings chose to bowl vs Sunrisers Hyderabad
Punjab Kings captain Shreyas Iyer won the toss and had no hesitation to bowl against Sunrisers Hyderabad. Shashank Singh, who changed the match with his bowling when these two teams last played, comes in replacing the out-of-form Nehal Wadhera. Fast bowler Lockie Ferguson also makes an appearance in place of Xavier Bartlett. Priyansh Arya wasn’t named in PBKS’ bowling first XI but is likely to come in as the Impact Player.
“The surface looks beautiful. There hasn’t been a single piece of grass since the time I have seen it,” Shreyas said on his decision to bowl.
SRH captain Pat Cummins wasn’t too fussed on losing the toss, “I can’t read pitches, they seem to all be high-scoring here,” he said. SRH made one change to their side, bringing in fit-again Nitish Reddy in place of Aniket Verma.
SRH could bring in either left-arm spinner Harsh Dubey or a seamer as their Impact Player
PBKS are coming into the game on the back of two losses, having remained unbeaten in the first seven games of the tournament. SRH are also coming in, having gone down to Kolkata Knight Riders but were on a five-game winning streak before that. The last time SRH and PBKS met was nearly a month back in new Chandigarh, where fifties from Prabhsimran Singh, Priyansh Arya and Shreyas Iyer helped PBKS chase down a stiff 220 target in 18.5 overs.
If PBKS win this game, they will extend their reign at the top of the table, inching closer to a playoffs spot. If SRH win, they will displace PBKS and go top of the points table for the first time this season.
Punjab Kings bowling first XI: 1 Prabhsimran Singh (wk), 2 Cooper Connolly, 3 Shreyas Iyer (capt), 4 Shashank Singh, 5 Suryansh Shedge, 6 Marcus Stoinis, 7 Marco Jansen, 8 Lockie Ferguson, 9 Vijaykumar Vyshak, 10 Arshdeep Singh, 11 Yuzvendra Chahal
Impact bench: Priyansh Arya, Harpreet Brar, Xavier Bartlett, Musheer Khan, Vishnu Vinod
Sunrisers Hyderabad batting first XI: 1 Abhishek Sharma, 2 Travis Head, 3 Ishan Kishan (wk), 4 Heinrich Klaasen, 5 Salil Arora, 6 R Smaran, 7 Nitish Kumar Reddy, 8 Pat Cummins(capt), 9 Shivang Kumar, 10 Eshan Malinga, 11 Sakib Hussain
Impact bench: Aniket Verma, Praful Hinge, Liam Livingstone, Harshal Patel, Harsh Dubey