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Rishabh Pant (Image credit: BCCI/IPL)
NEW DELHI: Lucknow Super Giants skipper Rishabh Pant apologised to the franchise's fans aft Punjab Kings skipper Shreyas Iyer won the flip and elected to tract successful Match 68 of IPL 2026 astatine the Ekana Cricket Stadium successful Lucknow connected Saturday.Already eliminated from the playoff race, LSG are playing lone for pridefulness successful their last league lucifer of the season, portion Punjab Kings request a triumph to support their qualification hopes alive.
Speaking astatine the toss, Pant said LSG excessively would person preferred to vessel archetypal and predicted a high-scoring contest."We would person bowled archetypal arsenic well. This wicket is bully for cricket careless of bowling oregon batting. This is 1 of the amended batting wickets; it could beryllium a high-scoring match.
Two changes - Arjun and Arshin Kulkarni are in," Pant said during the toss.Pant besides apologised to the fans for the franchise's disappointing campaign."It's been a pugnacious season, but astatine the aforesaid time, determination has been a batch of learning, some for the squad and personally. I'd accidental atrocious for the fans, they person travel from each implicit UP. It's been pugnacious going for us, but we'll springiness our 100% today," the LSG skipper said.LSG person endured a mediocre IPL 2026 season. Despite boasting a star-studded squad, Pant's broadside managed lone 4 wins and suffered 9 defeats successful 13 matches.
They were besides the archetypal squad to beryllium knocked retired of the playoff contention this season.
This is the 3rd consecutive twelvemonth that the Lucknow franchise has failed to suffice for the IPL playoffs aft finishing seventh successful some IPL 2024 and IPL 2025 arsenic well.Punjab Kings, meanwhile, opted to vessel archetypal aft winning the toss."We volition vessel first. Two changes - Marco and Vyshak are in. Feeling is exciting, I would accidental it's a bully lucifer for us.
We person ne'er been successful this concern before, and the boys are waiting to bash their best," Iyer said during the toss.Teams:Punjab Kings (Playing XI): Prabhsimran Singh(w), Priyansh Arya, Cooper Connolly, Shreyas Iyer(c), Suryansh Shedge, Shashank Singh, Azmatullah Omarzai, Marco Jansen, Vijaykumar Vyshak, Arshdeep Singh, Yuzvendra Chahal.Punjab Kings (Impact Players): Harpreet Brar, Marcus Stoinis, Xavier Bartlett, Vishnu Vinod, Praveen Dubey.Lucknow Super Giants (Playing XI): Josh Inglis, Arshin Kulkarni, Nicholas Pooran, Ayush Badoni, Rishabh Pant(w/c), Abdul Samad, Mukul Choudhary, Arjun Tendulkar, Mohammed Shami, Prince Yadav, Mohsin Khan.Lucknow Super Giants (Impact Players): Shahbaz Ahmed, Digvesh Singh Rathi, Manimaran Siddharth, Himmat Singh, Akash Maharaj Singh.
