Punjab Kings suffered an enormous damage blow as captain Shikhar Dhawan missed out on the essential IPL 2024 sport in opposition to Rajasthan Royals on Saturday. Sam Curran walked out for the toss at Maharaja Yadavindra Singh International Cricket Stadium in Mullanpur.
Rajasthan skipper Sanju Samson received the toss and elected to bowl first with some huge modifications to their playing eleven. Star batter Jos Buttler and skilled bowling all-rounder Ravichandran Ashwin missed out resulting from completely different accidents for Rajasthan with Rovman Powell and Tanush Kotian coming in.
Rajasthan skipper Samson confirmed that Buttler is not absolutely match and Ashwin has a niggle.
“We’ll bowl first, it looks like a decent wicket to bowl first,” Samson mentioned after successful the toss. “We’ve made a target to not think about the goal, focus on the process, work on building the team and we’re doing well. A lot of challenges outside as well, we’ve many players missing from tonight’s game. 90% of the game was good – Jos isn’t 100%, Ash bhai is having a niggle, so Rovman and Kotian come into the XI.”
Meanwhile, Liam Livingstone returned to playing eleven for Punjab Kings after lacking the final two video games resulting from damage and changed Sikandar Raza. Vidarbha top-order batter Atharva Taide, who performed seven video games in the IPL 2023, changed Shikhar Dhawan. Sam Curran revealed that Dhawan is lacking resulting from a niggle.
“Shikhar picked up a niggle, that’s why I’m here,” Sam Curran mentioned. “We would have bowled first as well, but we’ll now have to put the runs on the board. The balance has been good, we’d have liked to win a few more games, but the middle-order looks good, especially Shashank and Ashutosh. We’ve got exciting players and plenty of quality. We’ve Atharva Taide coming in for Shikhar tonight, Livingstone is back as well.”
Punjab Kings playing XI: Atharva Taide, Jonny Bairstow, Prabhsimran Singh, Sam Curran (c), Liam Livingstone, Shashank Singh, Jitesh Sharma (wk), Harpreet Brar, Harshal Patel, Kagiso Rabada, Arshdeep Singh.
Punjab Kings Impact Subs: Rahul Chahar, Ashutosh Sharma, Vidhwath Kaverappa, Harpreet Singh Bhatia, Nathan Ellis.
Rajasthan Royals playing XI: Sanju Samson (c & wk), Riyan Parag, Rovman Powell, Shimron Hetmyer, Dhruv Jurel, Tanush Kotian, Trent Boult, Keshav Maharaj, Avesh Khan, Kuldeep Sen, Yuzvendra Chahal.
Rajasthan Impact Subs: Yashasvi Jaiswal, Tom Kohler-Cadmore, Shubham Dubey, Navdeep Saini, Abid Mushtaq.
