Delhi Capitals captain Axar Patel won the toss and chose to bowl against Chennai Super Kings on a fresh red-soil pitch at Chepauk. They made one change, swapping out legspin allrounder Vipraj Nigam for pace allrounder Auqib Nabi, who was making his IPL debut.

Nabi, 29, was the top wicket-taker (60) in Jammu & Kashmir’s run to their maiden Ranji Trophy title. Ashutosh Sharma or Nitish Rana could come in as DC’s Impact Player when they chase.

CSK made two changes, bringing back middle-order batter Dewald Brevis, who has recovered from a side injury, and handing an IPL debut to Tamil Nadu left-arm quick Gurjapneet Singh. There was no room for New Zealand fast bowler Matt Henry and local left-arm spin allrounder Prashant Veer, who is yet to bowl in the IPL.

Gurjapneet, 27, recently played for India A and has been among the best death bowlers in the Tamil Nadu Premier League.

Apart from Brevis, Jamie Overton and Noor were the overseas players for CSK in their bat-first XI. There was no place for Kartik Sharma, who was on the Impact Sub bench. CSK could consider bringing in Henry or Akeal Hosein as an Impact Sub when they bowl later in the evening.

CSK bat-first XI: 1 Sanju Samson (wk), 2 Ruturaj Gaikwad (capt), 3 Ayush Mhatre, 4 Sarfaraz Khan, 5 Dewald Brevis, 6 Shivam Dube, 7 Jamie Overton, 8 Noor Ahmad, 9 Anshul Kamboj, 10 Khaleel Ahmed, 11 Gurjapneet Singh

Impact Sub bench: Matt Short, Akeal Hosein, Kartik Sharma, Prashant Veer, Matt Henry

DC bowl-first XI: 1 KL Rahul (wk), 2 Pathum Nissanka, 3 Sameer Rizvi, 4 Axar Patel (capt), 5 Tristan Stubbs, 6 David Miller, 7 Auqib Nabi, 8 Lungi Ngidi, 9 Kuldeep Yadav, 10 T Natarajan, 11 Mukesh Kumar

Impact Sub bench: Vipraj Nigam, Ashutosh Sharma, Karun Nair, Dushmantha Chameera, Nitish Rana