Lucknow, April 7 (IANS) Aiden Markram won his first toss as the captain of Sunrisers Hyderabad and elected to bat first against Lucknow Super Giants (LSB) in IPL 2023 at the Bharat Ratna Shri Atal Bihari Vajpayee Ekana Cricket Stadium on Friday.
Both teams enter Friday’s match after losses in their last game. While Hyderabad were thrashed by Rajasthan Royals by 72 runs, Lucknow suffered a 12-run defeat to Chennai Super Kings.
“The wicket looks quite dry. Hopefully, we can put up a good total. Ideally, we will get to our first win. Everyone seems in good spirits and full of energy. The guys are looking excited. Since we are batting first, Anmolpreet Singh will start,” said Markram.
Lucknow skipper K.L. Rahul said his team will look to adjust to the black soil pitch, which means less pace and bounce, without the services of Mark Wood and Avesh Khan, with Quinton de Kock also not playing.
“Even during the last game, I didn’t expect it to be a high-scoring one. We will assess the conditions and try to do our best. Wood is down with flu, so he misses out. Avesh injured himself in the last game, so he is taking a break. We will look to be aggressive and get the wickets.”
Playing XIs:
Lucknow Super Giants: K.L Rahul (c), Kyle Mayers, Deepak Hooda, Marcus Stoinis, Nicholas Pooran (wk), Romario Shepherd, Krunal Pandya, Amit Mishra, Yash Thakur, Jaydev Unadkat and Ravi Bishnoi
Substitutes: Ayush Badoni, Swapnil Singh, Daniel Sams, Prerak Mankad, Avesh Khan
Sunrisers Hyderabad: Mayank Agarwal, Anmolpreet Singh (wicketkeeper), Rahul Tripathi, Harry Brook, Aiden Markram (captain), Washington Sundar, Abdul Samad, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, T Natarajan, Umran Malik, Adil Rashid.
Substitutes: Heinrich Klaasen, Fazalhaq Farooqi, Mayank Markande, Mayank Dagar, Marco Jansen
–IANS
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