Ahmedabad, March 31 (IANS) Hardik Pandya’s Gujarat Titans won the toss and elected to bowl first against the M.S. Dhoni-led Chennai Super Kings in the opening match of the 16th edition of the Indian Premier League (IPL) at Narendra Modi Stadium here on Friday.
After winning the toss GT skipper Pandya said: “New start, new season, quite exciting. Good to play here and the kind of crowd we get here is exciting.”
About playing against Dhoni, Pandya said “Almost everyone in the country has got motivation from him (Dhoni). Been a fan and admirer of him. Want boys to enjoy it. The result will take care of itself. Impact Player is different, so I’ve left it to (coach). Ashu pa works all night on what needs to be done.”
However, Pandya hasn’t revealed the playing XI for the match, saying he didn’t know the combination yet.
On the other hand, Dhoni said that CSK will have four overseas players — Moeen Ali, Ben Stokes, Mitchell Santner and Devon Conway while Maharashtra bowling-allrounder Rajvardhan Hangargekar is making his IPL debut.
“Looks a good wicket and I don’t think it will change. Don’t know if there will be dew because it rained last night. You want to play in front of people. This stadium is twice the capacity of other stadiums. Fantastic atmosphere. Preparation was good. We assembled quite early.”
On Impact player rule, Dhoni said, “It’s a luxury to have. It becomes slightly easy to take the decision because you can use it at any time. Influence of allrounder has become slightly less because of the rule.”
Playing XIs:
Chennai Super Kings: Devon Conway, Ruturaj Gaikwad, Ben Stokes, Ambati Rayudu, Moeen Ali, Shivam Dube, MS Dhoni (w/c), Ravindra Jadeja, Mitchell Santner, Deepak Chahar, Rajvardhan Hangargekar
Subs: Tushar Deshpande, Subhranshu Senapati, Shaik Rasheed, Ajinkya Rahane, Nishant Sindhu
Titans XI: Shubhman Gill, Wriddhiman Saha (wk), Kane Williamson, Vijay Shankar, Hardik Pandya (capt), Rahul Tewatia, Rashid Khan, Mohammed Shami, Josh Little, Alzarri Joseph, Yash Dayal
Subs: B Sai Sudharsan, Jayant Yadav, Mohit Sharma, Abhinav Manohar, KS Bharat
–IANS
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