Toss Delhi Capitals chose to bowl vs Punjab Kings

Delhi Capitals (DC) captain Axar Patel won the toss and opted to bowl first in a must-win game against Punjab Kings (PBKS) in Dharamsala.

Since the start of 2023, teams batting first have won four of the five IPL games played here but Axar said, “It’s a fresh wicket and there’s help for fast bowlers early on.”

DC made five changes. They brought in Sahil Parakh, Abishek Porel, David Miller, Madhav Tiwari and Auqib Nabi. Among those left out, Pathum Nissanka and Kuldeep Yadav were the biggest names.

PBKS handed a debut to Ben Dwarshuis. He replaced Lockie Ferguson, who has a slight niggle. There was no Vijaykumar Vyshak either in the bat-first XI or the Impact Player bench. So when it’s time to bowl, one of Harpreet Brar, Yash Thakur and Praveen Dubey is likely to come in as Impact Player.

Dharamsala has been a high-scoring ground. The square boundaries are 63 metres and 65 metres. The straight boundary is 72 metres.

Punjab Kings: 1 Priyansh Arya, 2 Prabhsimran Singh (wk), 3 Cooper Connolly, 4 Shreyas Iyer (capt), 5 Marcus Stoinis, 6 Suryansh Shedge, 7 Shashank Singh, 8 Marco Jansen, 9 Ben Dwarshuis, 10 Arshdeep Singh, 11 Yuzvendra Chahal

Impact Player bench: Harpreet Brar, Yash Thakur, Xavier Bartlett, Vishnu Vinod, Praveen Dubey

Delhi Capitals: 1 Abishek Porel, 2 KL Rahul (wk), 3 Sahil Parakh, 4 Tristan Stubbs, 5 David Miller, 6 Axar Patel (capt), 7 Madhav Tiwari, 8 Auqib Nabi, 9 Mitchell Starc, 10 Lungi Ngidi, 11 Mukesh Kumar

Impact Player bench: Ashutosh Sharma, Sameer Rizvi, T Vijay, Pathum Nissanka, Vipraj Nigam