Punjab Kings won the toss and elected to bowl first against Gujarat Titans in their Indian Premier League (IPL) 2026 clash in Mullanpur.
There is an exciting bit of news for Punjab as Cooper Connolly makes his IPL debut. Without any surprise, PBKS are going with a strong and very similar lineup to the previous edition. Priyansh Arya is expected to come in as an Impact Player in the second innings.
For Gujarat Titans, there is a big boost as Glenn Phillips returns to the playing XI after missing out in the previous edition. His presence strengthens the middle order and adds more firepower to the side.
Punjab Kings (Playing XI): Prabhsimran Singh (wk), Cooper Connolly, Shreyas Iyer (c), Nehal Wadhera, Shashank Singh, Marcus Stoinis, Marco Jansen, Xavier Bartlett, Vijaykumar Vyshak, Arshdeep Singh, Yuzvendra Chahal
Impact Players: Priyansh Arya, Harpreet Brar, Praveen Dubey, Vishnu Vinod, Suryansh Shedge
Gujarat Titans (Playing XI): Shubman Gill (c), Sai Sudharsan, Jos Buttler (wk), Washington Sundar, Glenn Phillips, Shahrukh Khan, Rahul Tewatia, Rashid Khan, Kagiso Rabada, Ashok Sharma, Mohammed Siraj
Impact Players: Prasidh Krishna, Jason Holder, Jayant Yadav, Manav Suthar, Kumar Kushagra
PBKS vs GT: What captains said ahead of the clash
Shreyas Iyer also touched upon last season’s heartbreak, where PBKS narrowly missed out on the title, but made it clear that the focus now is on starting fresh and staying in the moment
“We had a phenomenal last season, but it's over now. We start from ball one and the only message I have given them is just be yourselves, go out there and express to the best of your abilities and see to it that you're in the present moment, not thinking way beyond”
On the other hand, Shubman Gill sounded confident about the surface and felt conditions are good for batting despite recent weather interruptions.
“I think the wicket looks pretty good. It has been under the covers for the past couple of days, rain on and off, and a bit cloudy. But when we came in today, we looked at the wicket, it looked like a pretty good wicket to bat on”
