Royal Challengers Bengaluru skipper Rajat Patidar won the toss and opted to bowl first against Lucknow Super Giants at the M Chinnaswamy Stadium in IPL 2026.

RCB have made one key change to their playing XI as Josh Hazlewood returns to the side in place of Jacob Duffy. There was also a bit of suspense around Virat Kohli’s availability after the ankle concern in the previous game, but the star batter has been included in the XI.

Lucknow Super Giants, meanwhile, have decided to go with the same playing XI from their previous match

Royal Challengers Bengaluru skipper Rajat Patidar won the toss and opted to bowl first against Lucknow Super Giants at the M Chinnaswamy Stadium in IPL 2026.

RCB have made one key change to their playing XI as Josh Hazlewood returns to the side in place of Jacob Duffy. There was also some suspense around Virat Kohli’s availability after the ankle concern in the previous game, but the star batter has been included in the XI.

Meanwhile, Lucknow Super Giants have decided to go unchanged from their previous match, backing the same combination.

Royal Challengers Bengaluru: Phil Salt, Devdutt Padikkal, Rajat Patidar (c), Jitesh Sharma (wk), Tim David, Romario Shepherd, Krunal Pandya, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Suyash Sharma, Rasikh Salam, Josh Hazlewood

Impact subs: Virat Kohli, Venkatesh Iyer, Jordan Cox, Kanishk Chouhan, Mangesh Yadav

Lucknow Super Giants: Mitchell Marsh, Aiden Markram, Rishabh Pant (c & wk), Nicholas Pooran, Ayush Badoni, Abdul Samad, Mukul Choudhary, Mohammed Shami, Avesh Khan, Digvesh Rathi, Prince Yadav

Impact Subs: Manimaran Siddharth, George Linde, Matthew Breetzke, Himmat Singh, Mayank Yadav

RCB vs LSG: Captains take at the toss

Rajat Patidar spoke about the surface and conditions after opting to bowl first. He mentioned that unlike the previous game, the pitch does not have much grass and should play better for batting. He also added that the team will assess how it behaves as the match progresses.

“It’s different from the last game. There was a lot of grass then, but this wicket looks much cleaner. Should be a good track, but let’s see how it goes.”

On the other hand, Rishabh Pant stressed the need for collective responsibility within the group. He said the team is focused on staying together and backing each other rather than overthinking performances in every game.

“As a group, we just want to regroup and take ownership of our roles. It’s important we stay together and not keep over analysing every match.”