Lucknow, May 23 (IANS) Marco Jansen and Vyshak Vijaykumar have come in for Punjab Kings as captain Shreyas Iyer won the toss and elected to bowl first against Lucknow Super Giants in a must-win Indian Premier League (IPL) 2026 clash at the BRSABV Ekana Cricket Stadium in Lucknow on Saturday.

PBKS come into Saturday’s clash after being winless in their last six outings, but still have a mathematical chance of making the playoffs if they beat LSG. They would also need to finish above Kolkata Knight Riders on net run rate (NRR), and hope Rajasthan Royals lose to Mumbai Indians on Sunday afternoon.

PBKS had beaten LSG by 54 runs in the previous meeting between the two teams this season in New Chandigarh. After winning the toss, Iyer said, “It is suddenly exciting (on being in a do-or-die situation). It’s like a do-or-die game for us. I would rather do.

“So looking forward to the challenge. Never been in this situation before, as in the league table. But the boys are super excited. They’re eagerly waiting to see how it turns out at the end of the day.”

LSG skipper Rishabh Pant said left-arm pace bowling all-rounder Arjun Tendulkar is making his debut for LSG, while Arshin Kulkarni also comes into the team, along with Mohammed Shami, especially with Mitchell Marsh not available.

“We would have bowled first as well. This wicket is good for cricket regardless of bowling or batting. This is one of the better batting wickets; it could be a high-scoring match.

“It’s been a tough season, but at the same time, there has been a lot of learning, both for the team and personally. I’d say sorry to the fans; they have come from all over UP. It’s been tough going for us, but we’ll give our 100 percent today.”

Playing XIs:

Lucknow Super Giants: Josh Inglis, Arshin Kulkarni, Nicholas Pooran, Ayush Badoni, Rishabh Pant (wk), Abdul Samad, Mukul Choudhary, Arjun Tendulkar, Mohammed Shami, Prince Yadav, and Mohsin Khan

Impact substitutes: Shahbaz Ahmed, Digvesh Rathi, M Siddharth, Himmat Singh, and Akash Singh

Punjab Kings: Prabhsimran Singh (wk), Priyansh Arya, Cooper Connolly, Shreyas Iyer (captain), Suryansh Shedge, Shashank Singh, Azmatullah Omarzai, Marco Jansen, Vijaykumar Vyshak, Arshdeep Singh, and Yuzvendra Chahal

Impact substitutes: Harpreet Brar, Marcus Stoinis, Xavier Bartlett, Vishnu Vinod, and Pravin Dubey

–IANS

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