Sunrisers Hyderabad captain Pat Cummins won the toss and opted to bowl against Delhi Capitals on Monday at the Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium in the 18th edition of the Indian Premier League.
The race for the playoffs is heating up, and the Sunrisers need a victory to keep themselves in as they stand on the brink of elimination. On the other hand, Delhi Capitals have lost three out of their last four fixtures and stand just outside the qualification bracket. DC sit in the fifth spot with 12 points and will be keen on rekindling their campaign. SRH have made a bold call as they dropped all-rounder Nitish Kumar Reddy for the do-or-die fixture.
Sunrisers Hyderabad captain Pat Cummins explained his decision to bowl and said, "We'll bowl. We've talked about a few things, haven't had a complete game yet. Want to do the basics well. It's about giving yourself the chance, and everyone's a match-winner. We bat very deep. The support has been amazing, but we probably haven't had the results we wanted. The crowd has been amazing. Buzzing around in the field, that's one thing we can judge ourselves on."
Delhi Capitals skipper Axar Patel said during the time of the toss, "Would've fielded first as well, looks like a good wicket and it shouldn't change much. Will look to get a good score and restrict them. The last phase is here and these are must-win games. We've tried to keep the environment light, we weren't thinking about these things at the start of the tournament, and we played well. We want to go into these games with the same mindset and not let the situation pressure us. We've had different players contribute, and we haven't been dependent on one player. It's important to continue the momentum. We want to have close games, even if we lose, we don't want to lose by big margins."
Sunrisers Hyderabad (Playing XI): Abhishek Sharma, Ishan Kishan(w), Sachin Baby, Heinrich Klaasen, Aniket Verma, Abhinav Manohar, Pat Cummins(c), Harshal Patel, Jaydev Unadkat, Zeeshan Ansari, Eshan Malinga
Sunrisers Hyderabad Impact Subs: Travis Head, Harsh Dubey, Rahul Chahar, Wiaan Mulder, Mohammed Shami
Delhi Capitals (Playing XI): Faf du Plessis, Abishek Porel, Karun Nair, KL Rahul(w), Axar Patel(c), Tristan Stubbs, Vipraj Nigam, Mitchell Starc, Dushmantha Chameera, Kuldeep Yadav, T Natarajan
Delhi Capitals Impact Subs: Ashutosh Sharma, Jake Fraser McGurk, Sameer Rizvi, Mukesh Kumar, Mohit Sharma.