IPL 2025: Unbeaten Punjab Kings elect to bowl first against Rajasthan Royals

New Chandigarh, April 5 (IANS) Punjab Kings have won the toss and elected to bowl first against Rajasthan Royals in Match 18 of the Indian Premier League(IPL) 2025 at the Maharaja Yadavindra Singh International Cricket Stadium here on Saturday.

PBKS are brimming with confidence, heading into their first home game of the season, after launching their campaign with two back-to-back wins under the leadership of Shreyas Iyer, who has smashed consecutive half-centuries to score 149 runs in two games at a strike rate of over 200.

In their bowling unit, led by Arshdeep Singh, Vijaykumar Vyshak is one to watch out for, after the 28-year-old rookie made an instant impact in PBKS' season-opening win against Gujarat Titans, delivering game-changing performances coming in as an impact sub that caught everyone’s attention.

“Looking at the last game, we were playing on a new wicket and we want to see how the pitch plays. Same mindset here as well. We need to stabilise the rhythm from game one, and that's happened. Important to steady the ship from here; the boys are in high spirits. Need to maintain composure and calmness throughout the season. We've played the practice games here, so we know how the wicket will play. We played our last two games on red soil, so hopefully we can adapt early,” said Iyer at the toss.

After donning the role of the Impact Player for the first three games of the season while recovering from a finger injury, Sanju Samson will be captaining the Rajasthan Royals for the first time in IPL 2025 in the upcoming encounter.

The Royals beat Chennai Super Kings by six runs in their previous outing with Nitish Rana and Wanindu Hasaranga playing starring roles with the bat and ball, respectively. They currently sit in the 9th spot in the table having lost two of their opening three games. The Royals made only one change to their side as Tushar Deshpande missed out because of a small injury, and Yudhvir Singh comes in.

“Pretty happy to bat first and put on a decent total. I could feel what the coaches would be going through, a bit restless and helpless. But excited to be back now. It is a new team and team management, we have got to know each other now, and it takes a bit of time. We are feeling better now, last game we pretty much had the perfect game. We have a small niggle for Tushar Despande, so he's out for today and Yudhvir comes in for him,” said Samson at the toss

Playing XIs:

Punjab Kings: Prabhsimran Singh (wk), Shreyas Iyer (c), Marcus Stoinis, Nehal Wadhera, Glenn Maxwell, Shashank Singh, Suryansh Shedge, Marco Jansen, Arshdeep Singh, Lockie Ferguson, Yuzvendra Chahal

Impact players: Priyansh Arya, Harpreet Brar, Pravin Dubey, Vishnu Vinod, Vijaykumar Vyshak

Rajasthan Royals: Yashasvi Jaiswal, Sanju Samson (c), Nitish Rana, Riyan Parag, Dhruv Jurel (wk), Shimron Hetmyer, Wanindu Hasaranga, Jofra Archer, Maheesh Theekshana, Yudhvir Singh Charak, Sandeep Sharma

Impact players: Kunal Singh Rathore, Shubham Dubey, Fazalhaq Farooqi, Kumar Kartikeya, Akash Madhwal

--IANS

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