Rajasthan Royals captain Riyan Parag won the toss and chose to field first against Sunrisers Hyderabad in Hyderabad, with the match marking an effort to break a two-game slide in IPL 2026. Opting to bowl on a fresh surface, RR looked to set the tempo early and put pressure on the home side.
Team news and squad changes
Rajasthan made two alterations to their playing XI. South Africa batter Lhuan-dre Pretorius received a first outing of the season, coming in for Shimron Hetmyer, who was rested. In a like-for-like swap, Brijesh Sharma was replaced by seamer Tushar Deshpande.
Sunrisers Hyderabad also reshuffled their line-up twice. Harshal Patel and Jaydev Unadkat, part of the team’s experienced bowling options, were left out as debutants Sakib Hussain and Praful Hinge were brought in. Hussain, who represents Bihar in domestic cricket, will face state colleague Vaibhav Sooryavanshi, while Hinge plays for Vidarbha and has been linked with Harsh Dubey there.
- Rajasthan Royals (RR): Yashasvi Jaiswal, Dhruv Jurel (wk), Riyan Parag (capt), Lhuan-dre Pretorius, Donovan Ferreira, Ravindra Jadeja, Jofra Archer, Nandre Burger, Sandeep Sharma, Ravi Bishnoi, Tushar Deshpande
- RR Impact Subs: Vaibhav Sooryavanshi, Shimron Hetmyer, Ravi Singh, Shubham Dubey, Brijesh Sharma
- Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH): Abhishek Sharma, Travis Head, Ishan Kishan (capt & wk), Heinrich Klaasen, Salil Arora, Aniket Verma, Nitish Kumar Reddy, Harsh Dubey, Shivang Kumar, Eshan Malinga, Praful Hinge
- SRH Impact Subs: R Smaran, Sakib Hussain, Liam Livingstone, Shivam Mavi, Harshal Patel
