Sunrisers Hyderabad skipper Pat Cummins won the toss and elected to bowl first against Chennai Super Kings in the 18th match of the Indian Premier League 2024. Both SRH and CSK made multiple changes to their playing eleven after heavy defeats in their respective last games in IPL 2024.
In-form pacers Mustafiur Rahaman, and Matheesha Pathirana miss out for Chennai with Maheesh Theekshana and Moeen Ali coming to the playing eleven against Hyderabad. Sameer Rizvi also dropped to the bench with Mukesh Choudhary coming in starting eleven for Chennai.
"Everyone is in good head space," Ruturaj Gaikwad said. "For me, I have done captaincy, nothing new for me. I just want to be myself and just take things forward. Mustafizur is absent, Pathirana has a slight niggle as well. Mo comes in Theekshana comes in and Mukesh comes in. Big miss for us [Mustafizur]. The bowlers are rearing to go regardless."
SRH also recalled experienced bowler T Natarajan who missed the last two games due to an injury. Cummins revealed that star opener Mayank Agarwal is feeling unwell and has been replaced by all-rounder Nitish Kumar Reddy.
Meanwhile, Travis Head is among the substitutes as SRH started the game with three overseas options Cummins, Aiden Markram and Heinrich Klaasen. With Mayank missing out, Head is likely to come in as an impact player when SRH bats in the second innings.
"Few games, still trying to get my head around the impact player," Cummins said. "Consistency is the key. Mayank is feeling unwell and Nitish Reddy is in. Natarajan is back from injury. It looks like a good wicket."
SRH playing XI: Nitish Kumar Reddy, Abhishek Sharma, Aiden Markram, Heinrich Klaasen, Abdul Samad, Shahbaz Ahmed, Pat Cummins, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Jaydev Unadkat, Mayank Markande, T Natarajan.
CSK playing XI: Ruturaj Gaikwad (c), Rachin Ravindra, Ajinkya Rahane, Moeen Ali, Daryl Mitchell, Shivam Dube, Ravindra Jadeja, MS Dhoni (wk), Deepak Chahar, Tushar Deshpande, Maheesh Theekshana.
Sunrisers Hyderabad impact subs: Travis Head, Umran Malik, Washington Sundar, Glenn Phillips, Rahul Tripathi.
Chennai Super Kings impact subs: Shardul Thakur, Shaik Rasheed, Mitchell Santner, Sameer Rizvi, Mukesh Choudhary.
