Toss Lucknow Super Giants chose to bowl vs Sunrisers Hyderabad

Lucknow Super Giants (LSG) captain Rishabh Pant won the toss and opted to bowl against Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) under overcast skies in Hyderabad. His reasoning, however, didn’t come across so clearly.

“It looks like a good wicket for sure but at the same time, there is something for the bowlers as well,” Pant said. “After the powerplay it will be harder to score.”

When asked if he would continue opening the innings for LSG, Pant said: “We’ll see.” In the team sheet, he was slotted at No. 3. LSG brought in legspinner Digvesh Rathi, left-arm spinner M Siddharth and fast bowler Avesh Khan. Shahbaz Ahmed, Anrich Nortje and Mohsin Khan made way for them. Ayush Badoni is likely to come in as the Impact Player for the chase.

SRH also made a couple of changes, bringing in Liam Livingstone and Harshal Patel. Salil Arora was left out, and only one of the two overseas fast bowlers Eshan Malinga and David Payne can come in – both were part of the Impact Player bench.

The match is being played on pitch no. 2. The last time an afternoon game was played on this pitch, in IPL 2025, SRH scored 286 and Rajasthan Royals responded with 242. The square boundaries are 63 and 68 metres. The straight boundary is 75 metres.

LSG lost their first game of the season against DC; while SRH are coming off a win against KKR at Eden Gardens after losing to RCB in Bengaluru.

Sunrisers Hyderabad: 1 Abhishek Sharma, 2 Travis Head, 3 Ishan Kishan (capt & wk), 4 Heinrich Klaasen, 5 Liam Livingstone, 6 Aniket Verma, 7 Nitish Kumar Reddy, 8 Harsh Dubey, 9 Shivang Kumar, 10 Harshal Patel, 11 Jaydev Unadkat

Impact Player options: Eshan Malinga, David Payne, Salil Arora, Shivam Mavi, Zeeshan Ansari

Lucknow Super Giants: 1 Mitchell Marsh, 2 Aiden Markram, 3 Rishabh Pant (capt & wk), 4 Nicholas Pooran, 5 Abdul Samad, 6 Mukul Choudhary, 7 Avesh Khan, 8 Mohammed Shami, 9 Prince Yadav, 10 Digvesh Rathi, 11 M Siddharth

Impact Player options: Anrich Nortje, Himmat Singh, Shahbaz Ahmed, Ayush Badoni, Matthew Breetzke