The departure of overseas players has seen the Punjab Kings setting a never-seen-before record in the history of the Indian Premier League. PBKS are facing Sunrisers Hyderabad at the Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium in Hyderabad as they look to end their campaign on a high note.
But for Sunrisers, there is much more value in this game as they still have a chance to finish in the top two of the points table and play in Qualifier 1.
PBKS have set a historical record of playing only one overseas player in an IPL match. They are going with South Africa's Rilee Rossouw, while most of their foreign players have departed back home.
PBKS' stand-in captain confirmed the same after he won the toss in his maiden game as IPL skipper. "We would like to bat. I think wicket is looking good, we want to score big and put SRH under pressure. Proud and grateful to captain my side today. We have few options because all the overseas have gone. Only Rilee Rossouw is gonna play. We have exciting talent waiting for their opportunity and they are gonna give their best today. Nothing to lose today, we are here to play some good cricket," Jitesh said at the toss.
SRH skipper Pat Cummins said that his team has also made one change with Rahul Tripathi coming in. "The fans have been awesome this season here. We are pretty well set-up for both (bat first or ball first. I'm a terrible reader of wickets, looks like a nice wicket. Looks dry and firm. Only one change for us. Rahul Tripathi comes in for a bowler," Cummins said.
Notably, this will also become the first-ever occasion of 11 Indians being used in the match by a team if PBKS use an Impact player for this game. Notably, PBKS have only Indian players in their Impact sub-options and if an extra player is called, it will become the maiden occasion of 11 Indians playing an IPL game from one team.
Sunrisers Hyderabad Playing XI: Abhishek Sharma, Nitish Reddy, Rahul Tripathi, Heinrich Klaasen(w), Abdul Samad, Shahbaz Ahmed, Sanvir Singh, Pat Cummins(c), Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Vijayakanth Viyaskanth, T Natarajan
Punjab Kings Playing XI: Prabhsimran Singh, Atharva Taide, Rilee Rossouw, Shashank Singh, Jitesh Sharma(w/c), Ashutosh Sharma, Shivam Singh, Harpreet Brar, Rishi Dhawan, Harshal Patel, Rahul Chahar
Sunrisers Hyderabad Impact Subs: Travis Head, Umran Malik, Glenn Phillips, Washington Sundar, Jaydev Unadkat
Punjab Kings Impact Subs: Arshdeep Singh, Tanay Thyagarajan, Prince Choudhary, Vidhwath Kaverappa, Harpreet Singh Bhatia
