Captain Faf du Plessis won the crucial toss as Royal Challengers Bengaluru elected to bat first against Sunrisers Hyderabad in the 41st match of the Indian Premier League 2024 on Thursday.
After winning the toss, Bengaluru entered the game with the same starting eleven that almost pulled off a 223-run chase against Kolkata in the last match. High-flying Hyderabad made only one change to their playing eleven with pacer Jaydev Unadkat replacing spinner Washington Sundar at Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium.
“We are gonna bat first,” Faf du Plessis said. “We feel like our fans go with us everywhere. These boys (SRH) have been playing some amazing cricket, especially batting. Hopefully we can put some scoreboard pressure on them. They’ve been batting really well when they’ve been setting scores. I was really proud with the way we played the previous game. We fought really hard with ball in hand. Two games in a row now, we’ve put some really good scores. Same team as the previous game.”
Hyderabad captain Pat Cummins received a big roar when he entered for the toss in front of the home crowd. Cummins talked about fans’ support and promised aggressive intent while batting second.
“It’s been awesome, good to be back here after a few away games,” Cummins said. “Plenty of orange flags. It’s my first year here. The amount of people wearing orange, the flags, social media has gone crazy, feels like a really good place. Little bit of adjustment after the last few games, but we keep the same intent whether we bat first or second, want to bat the same way. With the bowling group, it feels like we have adjusted pretty well. Tonight, we got to adjust quicker. Unadkat comes in for Washington Sundar.”
Sunrisers Hyderabad Playing XI: Abhishek Sharma, Aiden Markram, Heinrich Klaasen (wk), Nitish Reddy, Abdul Samad, Shahbaz Ahmed, Pat Cummins (c), Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Jaydev Unadkat, Mayank Markande, T Natarajan.
Royal Challengers Bangalore Playing XI: Virat Kohli, Faf du Plessis (c), Rajat Patidar, Cameron Green, Will Jacks, Dinesh Karthik (wk), Mahipal Lomror, Karn Sharma, Lockie Ferguson, Mohammed Siraj, Yash Dayal.
Sunrisers Hyderabad Impact Subs: Umran Malik, Anmolpreet Singh, Glenn Phillips, Washington Sundar, Travis Head.
Royal Challengers Bengaluru Impact Subs: Suyash Prabhudessai, Anuj Rawat, Himanshu Sharma, Vijaykumar Vyshak, Swapnil Singh.