Jaipur, May 7 (IANS) England batter Joe Root was handed his Indian Premier League (IPL) debut as Rajasthan Royals captain Sanju Samson won the toss and elected to bat first against Sunrisers Hyderabad in an IPL 2023 match at Sawai Mansingh Stadium on Sunday.
The pitch for Sunday’s match is the one used in Friday’s game, where Rajasthan were handed a nine-wicket thrashing by defending champions Gujarat Titans. Both Rajasthan and Hyderabad are coming off four losses in their last five matches of the competition and need a victory to get their campaign back on track.
After winning the toss, Samson said apart from Root’s debut, the team is dealing with a few injury issues. Trent Boult is not in the playing eleven, with Rajasthan fielding three spinners — Ravichandran Ashwin, Murugan Ashwin and Yuzvendra Chahal.
“Conditions also demand the same. Climate has been different. Not much dew in the latter half. And sometimes it suits us also. We would’ve wanted to play a better standard of cricket. We’ve had hard and honest chats. Would like to come back stronger.”
Hyderabad skipper Aiden Markram said Harry Brook has been left out of the playing eleven for Glenn Phillips. Jammu & Kashmir batter Vivrant Sharma was handed his debut IPL cap, with Mayank Agarwal and Umran Malik left out of the playing eleven.
“Would’ve also batted first. It’s a used wicket. There have been some close ones. Most of the time we’ve played decent cricket but not been able to get over the line.”
Playing XIs:
Rajasthan Royals: Yashasvi Jaiswal, Jos Buttler, Sanju Samson (c & wk), Joe Root, Dhruv Jurel, Shimron Hetmyer, Ravichandran Ashwin, Murugan Ashwin, Sandeep Sharma, Kuldip Yadav and Yuzvendra Chahal
Substitutes: Devdutt Padikkal, Riyan Parag, Jason Holder, Adam Zampa, Obed McCoy
Sunrisers Hyderabad: Abhishek Sharma, Rahul Tripathi, Aiden Markram (c), Heinrich Klaasen (wk), Glenn Phillips, Abdul Samad, Marco Jansen, Vivrant Sharma, Mayank Markande, Bhuvneshwar Kumar and T Natarajan
Substitutes: Harry Brook, Anmolpreet Singh, Mayank Dagar, Sanvir Singh, Nitish Kumar Reddy
–IANS
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