Hyderabad, May 6 (IANS) Punjab Kings won the toss and elected to field against Sunrisers Hyderabad in the 49th match of the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2026 at the Rajeev Gandhi International Stadium, Uppal, in Hyderabad on Wednesday.

Sunrisers Hyderabad have opted for a reshuffle, bringing in Nitish Kumar Reddy and Sakib Hussain while leaving out Aniket Verma and Harshal Patel in a bid to freshen up their combination. Punjab Kings have made multiple changes as well, with Shashank Singh, Lockie Ferguson and Vyshak Vijaykumar coming into the XI, replacing Priyansh Arya, Nehal Wadhera and Xavier Bartlett, signalling a tactical rethink as both sides look to strike the right balance.

Punjab Kings captain Shreyas Iyer said, “We are going to bowl first. So far, so good. We have got amazing learnings from the last 2 games. We have had 2 losses, but we are still happy with being top of the table. There haven’t been any complaints. People are putting in the hard yards. You have to keep up and running. We are a bunch of professionals, can’t complain. The surface looks beautiful. There isn’t a piece of grass. The last game we played against SRH on this wicket, they chased 240. Shashank and Lockie come in.”

Sunrisers Hyderabad captain said, “Yeah, we would have had a bowl as well. But we have won a lot of games batting first, so we aren’t very upset. Yes, it has been a really good campaign for us. It wasn’t our day in the last game, but we won 5 games on the trot before that. Really positive group. We don’t have to look far back. Hopefully, more of the same tonight. They have been awesome for the last few years. They love to see awesome cricket, and hopefully we are bringing in more of that tonight.”

Playing XIs:

Punjab Kings: Prabhsimran Singh (wk), Cooper Connolly, Shreyas Iyer (c), Shashank Singh, Suryansh Shedge, Marcus Stoinis, Marco Jansen, Lockie Ferguson, Vyshak Vijaykumar, Arshdeep Singh, Yuzvendra Chahal

Impact substitutes: Priyansh Arya, Harpreet Brar, Xavier Bartlett, Vishnu Vinod, Musheer Khan

Sunrisers Hyderabad: Abhishek Sharma, Travis Head, Ishan Kishan (wk), Heinrich Klaasen, Salil Arora, Smaran Ravichandran, Nitish Kumar Reddy, Pat Cummins (c), Shivang Kumar, Eshan Malinga, Sakib Hussain

Impact substitutes: Aniket Verma, Praful Hinge, Liam Livingstone, Harsh Dubey, Harshal Patel

–IANS

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