PBKS vs MI IPL 2024 Playing XIs: Rilee Rossouw replaces struggling Jonny Bairstow for Punjab Kings

Image Source : BCCI/IPL Jasprit Bumrah and Jonny Bairstow in Mullanpur on April 18, 2024

Stand-in skipper Sam Curran won the toss and Punjab Kings elected to bowl first against Mumbai Indians in the crucial IPL 2024 game on Thursday. Shikhar Dhawan remained absent but Punjab Kings made two big changes to their playing eleven at Mullanpur's Maharaja Yadavindra Singh International Cricket Stadium.

Punjab finally dropped struggling star Jonny Bairstow and replaced the Englishman with new signing Rilee Rossouw. The South African batter cost INR 8 crore in the player auction but was not able to crack into Punjab's starting eleven in the first seven games.

"We will have a bowl," Sam Curran said after winning the toss. "Keeping up with the trend of the tournament. Shikhar is not well, so that's the only injury and Rilee comes in for Jonny today. It is not nice to lose the close games but we are doing a lot of things right. Taide drops out of the side, just a couple of tactical changes."

On the other hand, Mumbai Indians remained unchanged from their big loss against Chennai Super Kings in the last game. Pacer Akash Madhwal was dropped to the bench as Suryakumar Yadav came into the playing eleven with Mumbai batting first.

"We were wanting to bat first as well, so good toss to lose," Hardik Pandya said. "We don't judge, couple of times we had the game in our grasp and didn't finish the game, IPL tests you, when the game is not over it is not over. We just take it game by game, go out there and give our 100 percent. Every indivdual should commit to the team's goal and once we do that, the results will be seen. Same team."

Punjab Kings Playing XI: Rilee Rossouw, Prabhsimran Singh, Sam Curran (c), Jitesh Sharma (wk), Liam Livingstone, Shashank Singh, Ashutosh Sharma, Harpreet Brar, Harshal Patel, Kagiso Rabada, Arshdeep Singh.