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How can PBKS get the best out of Chahal? (2:05)
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Apr 12, 2025, 09:56 AM ET
Shreyas Iyer called correctly as an unchanged Punjab Kings (PBKS) elected to bat against Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) at the Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium in Hyderabad in IPL 2025.
“The mindset has been to be aggressive from ball one,” he said. “We’ve seen that we don’t have a fantastic record in the powerplay, we have to see to it that we don’t have that at the back of the mind and play the ball on the merit.
“We just need to stay in the present, be brave and bold with our approach and our attitude has to be top-notch. We have a fantastic few matches recently and need to repeat that.”
PBKS are sitting pretty with three wins in four. SRH are seeking to overturn a string of four straight losses after opening the tournament with 286, the second-highest T20 total of all time.
Fresh off a five-day break, SRH have handed a debut to Eshan Malinga in place of the ambidextrous allrounder Kamindu Mendis. A death bowler, like the OG Malinga, Eshan made his ODI debut for Sri Lanka earlier this year, and also impressed for Paarl Royals at the SA20. Harshal Patel was fit again and back in the bowling XI, having missed the last game because of an illness. Jaydev Unadkat had played on that occasion and goes out for today.
“We feel like we can chase down anything,” Pat Cummins said. “It’s not been an ideal start but we’re training well and are in a good place. We try and destress, but it’s a long season. Things can turn quickly in T20s.”
Sunrisers Hyderabad: 1 Travis Head, 2 Abhishek Sharma, 3 Ishan Kishan, 4 Nitish Kumar Reddy, 5 Heinrich Klaasen (wk), 6 Aniket Verma, 7 Pat Cummins (capt), 8 Eshan Malinga, 9 Zeeshan Ansari, 10 Harshal Patel, 11 Mohammed Shami
Impact player options: Abhinav Manohar, Sachin Baby, Jaydev Unadkat, Rahul Chahar, Wiaan Mulder
Punjab Kings: 1 Prabhsimran Singh (wk), 2 Priyansh Arya, 3 Shreyas Iyer (capt), 4 Nehal Wadhera, 5 Shashank Singh, 6 Glenn Maxwell, 7 Marcus Stoinis, 8 Marco Jansen, 9 Yuzvendra Chahal, 10 Arshdeep Singh, 11 Lockie Ferguson
Impact player options: Suryansh Shedge, Pravin Dubey, Yash Thakur, Harpreet Brar, Vijaykumar Vyshak
