Toss Lucknow Super Giants chose to bowl vs Rajasthan Royals

Lucknow Super Giants captain Rishabh Pant won the toss and chose to bowl against Rajasthan Royals in Lucknow. The home side have lost their previous three fixtures in IPL 2026, while RR have lost two in a row coming into Wednesday’s contest.

LSG made two changes: legspinner Digvesh Rathi came in for M Siddharth, while fast bowler Mayank Yadav got his first game of the season, replacing Avesh Khan.

“Still figuring out what’s best with regards to our team [combination],” Pant said at the toss. “Last few matches have been challenging. Need to figure out a way to play here on home soil. Mostly it’s about subtle changes, you want to keep the stability.”

LSG continued to back Nicholas Pooran to find form. He has so far managed just 51 runs in six innings, and has the lowest strike rate among batters who have faced at least 50 balls this season. “A player who has shown so much potential, you want to trust him regardless,” Pant said of Pooran.

RR captain Riyan Parag didn’t mind batting first. “We’ve batted well, against KKR, made some miscalculations in the middle overs. Message is we need to play 40 overs of good cricket. Hopefully we’ll do that.”

RR are presently fourth in the points table with eight points after six games; a win will take them to second place. LSG are down at ninth position, after losing four out of their six matches.

RR bat-first XI: 1 Yashasvi Jaiswal, 2 Vaibhav Sooryavanshi, 3 Dhruv Jurel (wk), 4 Riyan Parag (capt), 5 Shimron Hetmyer, 6 Donovan Ferreira, 7 Ravindra Jadeja, 8 Jofra Archer, 9 Ravi Bishnoi, 10 Brijesh Sharma, 11 Nandre Burger

RR bench: Lhuan-dre Pretorius, Ravi Singh, Yash Raj Punia, Shubham Dubey, Tushar Deshpande

LSG bowl-first XI: 1 Mitchell Marsh, 2 Ayush Badoni, 3 Rishabh Pant (capt & wk), 4 Nicholas Pooran, 5 Aiden Markram, 6 Mukul Choudhary, 7 Mohammed Shami, 8 Mohsin Khan, 9 Prince Yadav, 10 Digvesh Rathi, 11 Mayank Yadav

LSG bench: Himmat Singh, George Linde, M Siddharth, Matthew Breetzke, Abdul Samad