Toss Kings XI Punjab chose to bowl v Sunrisers Hyderabad
Kings XI Punjab chose to bowl against Sunrisers Hyderabad, who will be playing at home. Having lost their last two games, captain R Ashwin was confident the pitch wouldn’t change too much over the course of the game, allowing his side a fair crack at the chase later on. In Sunrisers Hyderabad, they take on a side with an identical win-loss ratio to theirs, but crucially, Kane Williamson’s side is ahead on net run rate.
Williamson, who recently returned to the IPL after flying to New Zealand for the death of his grandmother, is back at the helm for a team that, like their opponents, are winless over the past two games. Victory today will be a significant step towards clinching a spot in what is becoming an ever tighter contest for the playoffs. Sunrisers made three changes in a bid to inch ahead, with Mohammad Nabi, Sandeep Sharma and Abhishek Sharma coming in, while Siddarth Kaul, Deepak Hooda, and Shakib Al Hasan – who returned to Bangladesh – made way. Kings XI handed an IPL debut to 18-year old Prabhsimran Singh, and brought back Mujeeb ur Rehman into the side.
Sunrisers Hyderabad: 1 David Warner, 2 Kane Williamson (capt), 3 Manish Pandey, 4 Vijay Shankar, 5 Mohammad Nabi, 6 Wriddhiman Saha (wk), 7 Abhishek Sharma, 8 Rashid Khan, 9 Bhuvneshwar Kumar, 10 Khaleel Ahmed, 11 Sandeep Sharma
Kings XI Punjab: 1 KL Rahul, 2 Chris Gayle, 3 Mayank Agarwal, 4 David Miller, 5 Nicholas Pooran, 6 Prabhsimran Singh (wk), 7 R Ashwin (capt), 8 Mujeeb Ur Rahman, 9 Mohammed Shami, 10 M Ashwin, 11 Arshdeep Singh