Delhi Capitals captain Shreyas Iyer won the toss on Wednesday at the Dubai International Stadium and stuck to the blueprint on batting first, against Rajasthan Royals in their IPL 2020 tie.
Delhi only made one change for the evening - Tushar Deshpande will make his debut, replacing Harshal Patel.
"We will bat first. It's been dry and like we saw the other games, it's holding a bit. We want to approach every game positively and we got really good bowling attack to execute our plans. We got good back-ups who can come and perform, we are definitely missing him (Pant). We got one change," Iyer said.
Rajasthan did not make any changes to their playing XI with captain Steve Smith sticking with Ben Stokes as their opener.
"I was gonna bat as well. Hopefully we can bowl well, restrict them and chase it later on. It's obviously used wicket and hopefully we will put some pressure with the ball. We are playing the same team. And yes, Ben (Stokes) will open again," said Smith.
Rajasthan Royals (Playing XI): Ben Stokes, Jos Buttler(w), Steven Smith(c), Sanju Samson, Robin Uthappa, Riyan Parag, Rahul Tewatia, Jofra Archer, Shreyas Gopal, Jaydev Unadkat, Kartik Tyagi
Delhi Capitals (Playing XI): Prithvi Shaw, Shikhar Dhawan, Ajinkya Rahane, Shreyas Iyer(c), Marcus Stoinis, Alex Carey(w), Axar Patel, Ravichandran Ashwin, Tushar Deshpande, Kagiso Rabada, Anrich Nortje
Rajasthan had lost only one match in Sharjah in their three appearances this season. Delhi Capitals was the one to defeat the Royals, by 46 runs, earlier month. But Rajasthan had bounced back in their next game to defeat Sunrisers Hyderabad, their first outside Sharjah, to inject some fire into IPL 2020. They presently stand in the penultimate position in the points table with three wins in seven games. Delhi, on the other hand, stand second with five wins in as many games.
