NEW DELHI: Royal Challengers Bengaluru captain Rajat Patidar won the toss on Thursday and opted to play Lucknow Super Giants (LSG) first in their IPL 2026 match at the Ekana Stadium in Lucknow.
In a big setback for LSG, their pacer Mohsin Khan was unavailable for selection due to injury. While Australian batsman Josh Inglis also missed out due to injury.
“We have some injuries in our team. So Arshin (Kulkarni) replaces Inglis, he is a little injured. Mohsin is also slightly injured, and Shahbaz (Ahmed) replaces Sid (Manimaran Siddharth). (Conversations within the team?) The only thing is that we move more clearly. We know that we are the best players, but at the same time, when sometimes clarity is lacking, it can happen in cricket. So most of the time, there is talk about clarity, and there are some changes in the batting order so hopefully we can sort it out and take it for next season. Having a stable environment in T20 cricket is essential but at the same time when changes are needed you should be able to change something because doing the same thing every time may not give you the same result So trying sometimes especially in the current situation trying is not a bad option for sure (Good score on this pitch?) Looks like a 180-190 wicket for sure. matches,” LSG captain Rishabh Pant said during the toss.
While RCB captain Patidar said: “We are going to bowl first. It is not as noisy as Chinnaswamy, but it is still noisy. I think we are going to get a fairly hard surface, but I am not sure, it is a black dirt pitch and the last four or five matches here had low scores. We will try to restrict them to as low a score as possible. (At half-time) It was a good break, I would say. And everyone is watching in good spirits. And we joined in after “Six or seven days of hard work and a couple of weeks, like I said, everyone is doing pretty well during the tournament and we’re looking forward to this game. We’re playing with the same team.”
Equipment:
Royal Challengers Bangalore (Playing XI): Jacob Bethell, Virat Kohli, Devdutt Padikkal, Rajat Patidar(c), Jitesh Sharma(w), Krunal Pandya, Romario Shepherd, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Suyash Sharma, Rasikh Salam Dar, Josh Hazlewood
Lucknow Supergiants (Playing XI): Mitchell Marsh, Arshin Kulkarni, Nicholas Pooran, Aiden Markram, Rishabh Pant (w/c), Akshat Raghuwanshi, Himmat Singh, Shahbaz Ahmed, Digvesh Singh Rathi, Mohammed Shami, Prince Yadav
Impact substitutes for both teams:
Royal Challengers Bengaluru Impact Substitutes: Jordan Cox, Tim David, Mangesh Yadav, Vicky Ostwal, Venkatesh Iyer
Lucknow Super Giants Impact Submarines: Mayank Yadav, Mukul Choudhary, Abdul Samad, Manimaran Siddharth, Avesh Khan