Kamal Ghorui
NEW DELHI: Delhi Capitals captain Axar Patel won the toss and opted to field against five-time champions Mumbai Indians at the Arun Jaitley Stadium in Delhi on Saturday.“I choose to bowl first. First match at home, I want to see how the wicket is behaving. It looks a bit dry, a bit hard. We chased well in the last match. To chase down the target from 26/ 4 in the powerplay, it gives a lot of confidence to the group. Even the top-order know that there are batters in the lower order who can step up if they fail. Playing a home game is always beneficial. Our DC supporters will cheer for us. Same team.,” Axar said at the toss.Mumbai Indians suffered a major blow as their captain Hardik Pandya missed the clash against Delhi Capitals.In Pandya’s absence, Suryakumar Yadav led the side.
DC vs MI : Why isn’t Hardik Pandya playing today?
Stand-in captain Suryakumar Yadav explained the reason and said Pandya isn’t well.“(News on Hardik) He’s not well, doesn’t look good, so he was not fit for today’s game. So just getting into his shoes today. (On the win against KKR) If you win the first game after 13-14 years, there’s a lot of positivity in the camp, and we’re very happy, but completely different venue here from Wankhede. We have to take good responsibility and have a good game here,” Surya said during the toss. “(On the surface) Looks good, The toss was irrelevant. We wanted to bat first, they wanted to bowl first, but yeah, very happy to bat first. Looks good one. We’ve done here really well when we’ve batted first and defended. Quite a few changes. Deepak Chahar comes in for Hardik. Corbin Bosch comes in for Boulty, that’s a tactical change. Boulty had a good game in the last game at Wankhede. And Mitch Santner comes in for Allah Ghazanfar,” he said.Playing XIs:Delhi Capitals (Playing XI): KL Rahul(w), Pathum Nissanka, Nitish Rana, Axar Patel(c), Tristan Stubbs, David Miller, Vipraj Nigam, Lungi Ngidi, Kuldeep Yadav, T Natarajan, Mukesh KumarMumbai Indians (Playing XI): Rohit Sharma, Ryan Rickelton(w), Tilak Varma, Suryakumar Yadav(c), Naman Dhir, Sherfane Rutherford, Mitchell Santner, Corbin Bosch, Shardul Thakur, Deepak Chahar, Jasprit BumrahHere are the Impact substitutes for both the teams:Delhi Capitals Impact subs: Ashutosh Sharma, Auqib Nabi Dar, Sameer Rizvi, Dushmantha Chameera, Karun NairMumbai Indians Impact subs: Mayank Markande, Robin Minz, Raj Bawa, Trent Boult, Ashwani Kumar
