New Chandigarh, May 29 (IANS) Josh Hazlewood comes back into the Royal Challengers Bengaluru playing eleven as regular skipper Rajat Patidar won the toss and elected to bowl first against Punjab Kings in Qualifier 1 of Indian Premier League (IPL) 2025 at the Maharaja Yadavindra Singh International Cricket Stadium on Thursday.

The winner of Qualifier 1 will storm into the final, to be held at the Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad on June 3, while the losing side will have another crack at entering the title clash through the Qualifier 2 game at the same venue on Sunday.

PBKS, the league stage table toppers, are playing an IPL playoffs game for the first time after 11 years. The last time these two teams met at his venue, RCB won the match. What also comes as a big boost for RCB is Patidar back to captaining them after a finger injury meant Jitesh Sharma became stand-in skipper for their remaining league games, as well as Hazlewood being available for the crunch game after overcoming a shoulder niggle.

After winning the toss, Patidar said, “Wicket looks very hard, decent covering of grass, and will try to maximise the first few overs. Everyone gave more than 100 percent in the last game, Jitesh, Salt, and Kohli they were tremendous, though there are a few niggles,” he said.

PBKS skipper Shreyas Iyer said Marco Jansen goes out due to him joining the South Africa camp for next month’s World Test Championship Final, which in turn has paved the way for Azmatullah Omarzai to take his place in the playing eleven. Leg-spinner Yuzvendra Chahal continues to be on the sideline due to a niggle in his right wrist.

“Would have bowled first as well. If you look at the record here, teams batting first have done well, so I am optimistic. They (the crowd) have been tremendous, and you need such a kind of vibration when you enter the ground, and it gives us a lot of energy as well. The way they (openers) have been showing the fearless approach and the attitude has been brilliant,” he said.

The square boundaries at the venue stand at 62m and 65m respectively, while the straight down the ground boundary stands at 73m. The pitch for Thursday’s match was used twice before in the ongoing season. The night games at this venue have been won by teams batting first.

Playing XIs:

Punjab Kings: Priyansh Arya, Prabhsimran Singh, Josh Inglis (wk), Shreyas Iyer (captain), Nehal Wadhera, Shashank Singh, Marcus Stoinis, Azmatullah Omarzai, Harpreet Brar, Arshdeep Singh, and Kyle Jamieson

Impact substitutes: Vijaykumar Vyshak, Praveen Dubey, Suryansh Shedge, Musheer Khan, and Xavier Bartlet.

Royal Challengers Bengaluru: Virat Kohli, Philip Salt, Rajat Patidar (captain), Liam Livingstone, Jitesh Sharma (wk), Romario Shepherd, Krunal Pandya, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Yash Dayal, Josh Hazlewood, and Suyash Sharma

Impact substitutes: Mayank Agarawal, Rasikh Salam, Manoj Bhandage, Tim Seifert, and Swapnil Singh

–IANS

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