Manish Pandey not playing: Lucknow Super Giants have made a solitary change to their Playing XI for this match in Navi Mumbai tonight.
Advertisement
During the 15th match of the ongoing 15th season of the Indian Premier League between Lucknow Super Giants and Delhi Capitals in Navi Mumbai, Lucknow Super Giants captain KL Rahul has won the toss and chose to bowl first.
“We’ll bowl first. Can’t really think of a reason why but it’s a fresh wicket. We’d want to bowl well upfront and restrict them. Chat is about forgetting what happened, whether we win or lose, and putting our 100 percent going forward. Another opportunity to go out there and perform well as a team,” Rahul told Star Sports at the toss.
Much like Rahul, Delhi Capitals captain Rishabh Pant also wanted to bowl first at the Dr DY Patil Sports Academy tonight. Readers must note that both the teams will be playing the first match of the season at this venue.
“We’d have bowled first as well because we haven’t played here before,” Pant told Star Sports at the toss. Unlike Lucknow, Delhi have played a couple of IPL matches here but they had happened more than a decade ago.
Why is Manish Pandey not playing vs Delhi Capitals today?
Super Giants’ solitary change for this match has come in the form of all-rounder Krishnappa Gowtham coming in for batter Manish Pandey.
While Rahul wasn’t asked about the reason behind benching Pandey, it appears that LSG have excluded him after three failures this season. In three innings so far, Pandey had scored just 22 runs at an average and strike rate of 7.33 and 104.76 respectively. With DC having a couple of dangerous left-handed specialist batters, LSG would be hoping for Gowtham’s off-spin to trouble them.
ALSO READ: KL Rahul vs Delhi Capitals IPL stats
Meanwhile, Capitals have made as many as three changes to their Playing XI as batters David Warner and Sarfaraz Khan and fast bowler Anrich Nortje have come in place of batters Tim Seifert and Mandeep Singh and fast bowler Khaleel Ahmed.
