IPL 2024: Santner, Deshpande come in as unchanged PBKS elect to bowl first against CSK

Punjab Kings have won the toss and elected to bowl first against Chennai Super Kings in match 53 of IPL 2024 at the picturesque HPCA Stadium in Dharamsala on Sunday afternoon.

PBKS are placed at eighth position on the points table, while CSK are sitting at fifth place. The last time these two teams met in IPL 2024, PBKS beat CSK by seven wickets at the MA Chidambaram Stadium on May 1.

After winning the toss, PBKS captain Sam Curran said his playing eleven is unchanged. "Day game, try and see how it plays and chase it down. We've had two really good wins with the same team. Conditions should be fairly even throughout, it's about batting, bowling and fielding well," he said.

CSK skipper Ruturaj Gaikwad said left-arm spin all-rounder Mitchell Santner comes into the playing eleven in place of left-arm pacer Mustafizur Rahman, who is in Bangladesh for T20I series against Zimbabwe. Tushar Deshpande is also back in the playing eleven after missing the last game due to flu and comes in place of Deepak Chahar, who is down with a hamstring injury.

"We've just stuck to our process and doing little things right. We don't look at the track record of the opposition, we focus on ourselves and see what we can do right. This season there have been a lot of injuries, flus and forced changes so we've had to tinker with our team. I'd say losing 10 tosses but winning 5 games is a positive," he said.

Playing XIs-

Chennai Super Kings: Ruturaj Gaikwad (captain), Ajinkya Rahane, Daryl Mitchell, Shivam Dube, Ravindra Jadeja, Moeen Ali, MS Dhoni (wicket-keeper), Mitchell Santner, Shardul Thakur, Tushar Deshpande and Richard Gleeson

Substitutes: Sameer Rizvi, Simarjeet Singh, Shaik Rasheed, Prashant Solanki, and Mukesh Choudhary

Punjab Kings: Jonny Bairstow, Rilee Rossouw, Shashank Singh, Sam Curran (captain), Jitesh Sharma (wicket-keeper), Ashutosh Sharma, Harpreet Brar, Kagiso Rabada, Rahul Chahar, Harshal Patel and Arshdeep Singh

Substitutes: Prabhsimran Singh, Harpreet Bhatia, Tanay Thyagarajan, Vidwath Kaverappa and Rishi Dhawan