Marsh out as LSG bowl against GT

Lucknow Super Giants (LSG) captain Rishabh Pant won the toss and opted to bowl, on a black-soil pitch, at the Ekana Stadium. Gujarat Titans (GT) captain Shubman Gill said that he would have preferred to bowl first as well.

LSG will be without Mitchell Marsh, their second-highest run-getter in IPL 2025 and third highest overall behind Nicholas Pooran and B Sai Sudharsan, who will be in action on Saturday. Marsh missed out because his daughter is unwell, according to Pant. LSG brought in Delhi batter Himmat Singh in place of Marsh, but he was listed at No. 4 in their team sheet. Pooran was carded to open along with Aiden Markram.

Himmat was among the leading scorers in the inaugural Delhi Premier League. Among LSG's options to bring off the bench as Impact Player are Ayush Badoni, who's been a regular fixture in their middle order this season, or South African top-order batter Matthew Breetzke, for who it will be a debut if he does get to play.

GT also made one change, with offspin-bowling allrounder Washington Sundar returning in place of left-arm quick Kulwant Khejroliya. Washington shores up a spin attack that includes his Tamil Nadu team-mate R Sai Kishore and Afghanistan's ace spinner Rashid Khan.

LSG bowl-first XI: 1 Aiden Markram, 2 Nicholas Pooran, 3 Rishabh Pant (capt, wk), 4 Himmat Singh 5, David Miller, 6 Abdul Samad, 7 Shardul Thakur, 8 Akash Deep, 9 Digvesh Rathi, 10 Avesh Khan, 11 Ravi Bishnoi

Impact subs: Ayush Badoni, Prince Yadav, Shahbaz Ahmed, Matthew Breetzke, Shamar Joseph

GT bat-first XI: 1 B Sai Sudharsan, 2 Shubman Gill (capt), 3 Jos Buttler (wk), 4 Washington Sundar, 5 Sherfane Rutherford, 6 M Shahrukh Khan, 7 Rahul Tewatia, 8 Arshad Khan, 9 Rashid Khan, 10 R Sai Kishore, 11 Mohammed Siraj

Impact subs: Prasidh Krishna, Mahipal Lomror, Nishant Sindhu, Anuj Rawat, Jayant Yadav