Delhi Capitals opted to bowl against Sunrisers Hyderabad, with captain Axar Patel keeping his perfect record at the toss in IPL 2026. After being asked to bat first, SRH welcomed the plan—though their captain Ishan Kishan admitted the choice could have been more nuanced given the cloud cover around the time of the toss.
Key takeaways
- Axar Patel chose to field first and kept a 100% strike rate at the toss in IPL 2026.
- SRH’s Ishan Kishan said he might have preferred to bowl himself, depending on the cloud cover.
- Delhi shuffled their batting by replacing Auqib Nabi with Nitish Rana.
- SRH named left-arm spinner Harsh Dubey in their starting XI.
- Both teams used the Impact Player strategy, with Ashutosh Sharma and Karun Nair viewed as DC’s more likely picks, while Praful Hinge or Dilshan Madushanka were candidates for SRH.
What the captains said and how conditions shaped the decision
Axar Patel, leading Delhi at the toss, asked Sunrisers Hyderabad to bat first. The move came with context from SRH’s previous outing, where they had relished batting first and building their innings accordingly. Even so, Ishan Kishan acknowledged that the call was not entirely straightforward in this particular match. He suggested that he would likely have preferred to take the field himself, especially because cloud cover was present at the time the teams made their decision.
Team selections and Impact Player possibilities
Delhi Capitals made a key change to address their batting concerns, bringing in Nitish Rana for Auqib Nabi. With Rana and Tristan Stubbs available as bowling options beyond the regular five, Delhi also had a tactical angle at the top of the order: there was a plausible case for Rana to be used as an offspinner against the three left-handed batters occupying the early positions.
Although Auqib Nabi stayed on the bench, Delhi’s other Impact Player candidates were viewed as Ashutosh Sharma and Karun Nair, rather than Rana or Stubbs shifting roles immediately.
On the SRH side, the biggest selection headline was the inclusion of left-arm spinner Harsh Dubey in the first XI. That decision meant one of Praful Hinge or Dilshan Madushanka would have to move into the Impact Player slot. SRH also carried Harshal Patel as a backup option on the bench, providing additional flexibility if the pitch played especially slow and demanded a different bowling approach.
Playing XIs and benches
Sunrisers Hyderabad 1 Abhishek Sharma, 2 Travis Head, 3 Ishan Kishan (capt), 4 Heinrich Klaasen, 5 Salil Arora (wk), 6 Aniket Verma, 7 Nitish Kumar Reddy, 8 Shivang Kumar, 9 Harsh Dubey, 10 Sakib Hussain, 11 Eshan Malinga
SRH bench R Smaran, Praful Hinge, Liam Livingstone, Dilshan Madushanka, Harshal Patel
Delhi Capitals 1 Pathum Nissanka, 2 KL Rahul (wk), 3 Sameer Rizvi, 4 Axar Patel (capt), 5 David Miller, 6 Tristan Stubbs, 7 Nitish Rana, 8 Lungi Ngidi, 9 Kuldeep Yadav, 10 T Natarajan, 11 Mukesh Kumar
DC bench Tripurana Vijay, Ashutosh Sharma, Karun Nair, Dushmantha Chameera, Auqib Nabi
