Lucknow, April 1 (IANS) Delhi Capitals won the toss and elected to bowl against Lucknow Super Giants (LSG) in the fifth match of the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2026 at the Bharat Ratna Shri Atal Bihari Vajpayee Ekana Cricket Stadium in Lucknow on Wednesday.
“We will bowl first. First game, red soil, so we want to see how the pitch plays,” said DC captain Axar Patel after winning the toss. Obviously, the data is there that the second team wins more. The tournament is starting, we want to see how our bowling goes, and that’s what we wanted to bowl. Last season, we started well, but we failed to qualify because of one match in the middle. We want to start well again, hope to see it go then.”
On his overseas pick, Patel said, “three batters and a bowler. David Miller, Pathum Nissanka, Tristan Stubbs, and Lungi Ngidi.”
Rishabh Pant, Lucknow Super Giants captain, said, “I think it doesn’t matter in a wicket like this. It’s always good to have what you want. The wicket won’t change much apart from the dew. I think it’s a completely new energy for sure. We have changed our colour, logo, and definitely our mindset over the last year. We are also working on the negative stuff for sure.
“We are feeling good, and I think that’s the only thing I am going to say. I am feeling good and ready to roar. Well, definitely we have to improve from what we did last season. We need to look into the injuries as well. As a captain, you can’t look into those things too much. The bowlers are really fit and waiting to just go out there and make an impact,” he added.
Playing XIs:
Delhi Capitals: Pathum Nissanka, KL Rahul (wk), Nitish Rana, Axar Patel (c), David Miller, Tristan Stubbs, Vipraj Nigam, Lungi Ngidi, T Natarajan, Mukesh Kumar, Kuldeep Yadav
Impact substitutes: Sameer Rizvi, Karun Nair, Ashutosh Sharma, Dushmantha Chameera, Auqib Nabi
Lucknow Super Giants: Aiden Markram, Mitchell Marsh, Rishabh Pant (c and wk), Ayush Badoni, Nicholas Pooran, Abdul Samad, Mukul Choudhary, Mohsin Khan, Mohammed Shami, Prince Yadav, Anrich Nortje
Impact substitutes: Digvesh Singh Rathi, Avesh Khan, Himmat Singh, Shahbaz Ahmed, Akshat Raghuwanshi
–IANS
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