New Delhi, 8 April – Axar Patel won a third straight toss and, yes, he’s bowling again. The Capitals captain glanced at a cloudy sky, remembered last night’s drizzle and backed his attack to exploit whatever moisture is hanging around. It’s the same XI that won last time, so no selection headaches there.
The visitors’ headline change is Shubman Gill, neck sprain gone, back at the top and back in charge. “Much better now,” he said, the relief obvious. Gill’s return pushes keeper-batter Kumar Kushagra to the bench; otherwise Gujarat stay unchanged. The Titans’ middle order hasn’t fired yet, but the skipper is sticking with them. “It’s about clicking in the one game,” he argued. “Last game, we came pretty close. It’s just one guy sticking till the end.”
Worth noting: pitch No. 5 has seen three of its last four matches won by the side batting first. Axar isn’t fussed. Straight boundaries at the far end stretch to around 68-69 metres, fine leg shrinks to about 57, square sits neatly on 63. Early overs could be lively, especially with the heavy ball gripping.
Teams in full
Gujarat Titans: Shubman Gill (capt), B Sai Sudharsan, Jos Buttler (wk), Washington Sundar, Glenn Phillips, Shahrukh Khan, Rahul Tewatia, Rashid Khan, Kagiso Rabada, Mohammed Siraj, Ashok Sharma.
Impact subs: Prasidh Krishna, Jason Holder, Manav Suthar, Jayant Yadav, Anuj Rawat.
Delhi Capitals: KL Rahul (wk), Pathum Nissanka, Nitish Rana, David Miller, Tristan Stubbs, Axar Patel (capt), Vipraj Nigam, Kuldeep Yadav, Lungi Ngidi, T Natarajan, Mukesh Kumar.
Impact subs: Sameer Rizvi, Ashutosh Sharma, Auqib Nabi, Dushmantha Chameera, Karun Nair.
First ball at 7.30 pm local, weather currently behaving.
