Punjab bowl with Lockie Ferguson in for Azmatullah Omarzai

Punjab Kings captain Shreyas Iyer won the toss and opted to bowl on a red-soil surface in Lucknow's first match of IPL 2025. While Iyer was unsure about how the pitch would behave, he expected dew to set in later in the evening.

Lucknow Super Giants captain Rishabh Pant didn't mind batting first. While LSG made no changes to their XI, PBKS made one, bringing in New Zealand fast bowler Lockie Ferguson for Afghanistan allrounder Azmatullah Omarzai. Curiously, they left out their match-winner from the last game, Vijaykumar Vyshak, from the bowl first XI throwing doubt over the identity of their likely Impact Sub. It could be Nehal Wadhera.

This will be Ferguson's first competitive game since early February, when he hurt his hamstring while playing for Desert Vipers in the UAE's ILT20. He was subsequently sidelined from the Champions Trophy. Red-soil pitches usually help pace and bounce and Ferguson has plenty of that. He also has a good record against Nicholas Pooran in T20 cricket: four wickets in 17 balls at a strike rate of 7.05. Prince Yadav, who impressed with his pace against Sunrisers Hyderabad, is frontrunner to be their Impact Sub.

Punjab Kings: 1 Priyansh Arya, 2 Prabhsimran Singh (wk), 3 Shreyas Iyer(c), 4 Shashank Singh, 5 Marcus Stoinis, 6 Glenn Maxwell, 7 Suryansh Shedge, 8 Marco Jansen, 9 Lockie Ferguson, 10 Yuzvendra Chahal, 11 Arshdeep Singh

Impact sub options: Vyshak Vijaykumar, Pravin Dubey, Nehal Wadhera, Harpreet Brar, Vishnu Vinod

Lucknow Super Giants: 1 Mitchell Marsh, 2 Aiden Markram, 3 Nicholas Pooran, 4 Rishabh Pant (capt, wk ), 5 Ayush Badoni, 6 David Miller, 7 Abdul Samad, 8 Digvesh Singh Rathi, 9 Shardul Thakur, 10 Avesh Khan, 11 Ravi Bishnoi

Impact sub options: Prince Yadav, M Siddharth, Shahbaz Ahmed, Himmat Singh, Akash Singh