Ahmedabad, May 22: Winning the toss Rajasthan Royals (RR) skipper Sanju Samson elected to bowl first against Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) in the Qualifier 2 of the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2024 playoffs at MA Chidambaram Stadium, here on Friday.
Rajasthan Royals retained the same XI they played against RCB in the Eliminator on Wednesday in Ahmedabad.
But SRH included Aiden Markram and Jaydev Unadkat in their playing XI.
Squads:
Rajasthan Royals XI: Sanju Samson(Captain and wicket-keeper), Yashasvi Jaiswal, Tom Kohler-Cadmore, Riyan Parag, Dhruv Jurel, Rovman Powell, Ravichandran Ashwin, Trent Boult, Sandeep Sharma, Avesh Khan and Yuzvendra Chahal.
RR Impact Substitutes: Subs: Shimron Hetmyer, Nandre Burger, Shubham Dubey, Donovan Ferreira and Tanush Kotian..
Sunrisers Hyderabad XI: Pat Cummins (captain), Abhshek Sharma, Travis Head, Rahul Tripathi, Aiden Markram, Nitish Reddy, Heinrich Klassen (wicket-keeper), Abdul Samad, Bhuvneswar Kumar and Jaydev Unadkat and T Natrajan.
SRH Impact Substitutes: Shahbaz Ahmed, Mayank Markande, Glenn Phillips, Sanvir Singh and Umran Malik.
They are two contrasting teams. Their leaders and mentors too have different approach to their game. But the only commonality is, both teams want to win the Qualifier 2 and play Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) at the same venue on Sunday.
Batting heavy SRH appear to be bit better equipped than RR. But on a given day in a T20 game, anything can happen and the underdogs can surprise the bigger teams and have the last laugh. That's cricket, a great leveller.