New Delhi, May 17 (IANS) Delhi Capitals won the toss and elected to bowl first against Rajasthan Royals in match 62 of the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2026 at the Arun Jaitley Stadium in New Delhi on Sunday. Both DC and RR need wins, starting from Sunday’s clash, to keep their slim hopes of entering the playoffs alive.

After winning the toss in their final home game of IPL 2026, DC skipper Axar Patel said that bowling all-rounder Tripurana Vijay makes his debut and replaces Auqib Nabi. “When you win, you feel good. The atmosphere has been good even during the losses.

“I’m not thinking about conditions as I’ve gotten it wrong. We will try to bat and bowl well, no matter how the wicket behaves. You have to keep things on the field there and not carry it off the field,” he said.

RR captain Riyan Parag, fit again to lead the side after missing their previous clash against the Gujarat Titans due to a hamstring injury, said wicketkeeper-batter Ravi Singh makes his debut at the expense of Ravindra Jadeja, who’s out due to ‘load management,’ while Adam Milne also finds a place.

“Happy to be back first. I was pretty unsure about the wicket as well. It looks like it’s dry, but then we’ve seen the past scores and results here; chasing has been better, though it also tends to slow down a bit later on.

“So I was a little confused, but happy to bowl first because of that. We’ve had some ups and downs in the last few games. I think we haven’t defended totals very well. But today gives us another opportunity to do that and hopefully get it right.

“So we’ve gone with an extra seamer today, and hopefully we can defend the total better. Almost there (on figuring the best combination). We’ve had a few injuries here and there. I had to step out as well, so that hasn’t helped either,” he said.

Sunday’s match is being played on pitch number six, which is the centre wicket. The square boundaries are at 63 metres each, while the straight boundary is at 73 metres.

Playing XIs:

Delhi Capitals: KL Rahul (wk), Abishek Porel, Sahil Parakh, Tristan Stubbs, David Miller, Axar Patel (captain), Madhav Tiwari, Tripurana Vijay, Lungi Ngidi, Mitchell Starc, and Mukesh Kumar

Impact substitutes: Ashutosh Sharma, Sameer Rizvi, Vipraj Nigam, Pathum Nissanka, and Karun Nair

Rajasthan Royals: Yashasvi Jaiswal, Vaibhav Sooryavanshi, Dhruv Jurel (wk), Riyan Parag (captain), Ravi Singh, Donovan Ferreira, Shubham Dubey, Jofra Archer, Adam Milne, Brijesh Sharma, and Yash Raj Punja

Impact substitutes: Dasun Shanaka, Lhuan-dre Pretorius, Ravi Bishnoi, Sushant Mishra, and Aman Rao

–IANS

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