Head misses out as SRH opt to bowl; LSG hand debut to Will O'Rourke

Pat Cummins, the Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) captain, chose to bowl against Lucknow Super Giants (LSG) at Ekana Stadium.

SRH will be without opener Travis Head, whose return to India was delayed by a bout of Covid-19. Head arrived in Lucknow on the day of the match, and Cummins said he was at the team hotel. Left-arm quick Jaydev Unadkat was also unavailable for personal reasons.

SRH handed out a new cap too, to the Vidarbha left-arm spinner Harsh Dubey. Ishan Kishan is likely to move up one spot to open for SRH in Head's absence, with Nitish Kumar Reddy slotted at No. 3.

LSG handed a debut to the tall New Zealand fast bowler Will O'Rourke, who makes his first appearance in the IPL. The home team named a bowler-heavy starting XI despite batting first, with Akash Deep slotted at No. 7. Himmat Singh and Shahbaz Ahmed are options to come off the Impact Player bench should LSG need to shore up their batting during the first innings.

The off-centre location of the pitch for Monday's game makes for asymmetric square boundaries - 60m on one side, and 69m on the other - which could play a significant tactical role.

SRH are already out of contention for the playoffs, while LSG are among three teams vying for the fourth and final slot. To get there, they will need to win all three of their remaining games and hope other results go their way.

Sunrisers Hyderabad: 1 Ishan Kishan (wk), 2 Abhishek Sharma, 3 Nitish Kumar Reddy, 4 Heinrich Klaasen, 5 Aniket Verma, 6 Kamindu Mendis, 7 Pat Cummins (capt), 8 Harshal Patel, 9 Harsh Dubey, 10 Zeeshan Ansari, 11 Eshan Malinga

Impact Player bench: Mohammed Shami, Atharva Taide, Sachin Baby, Abhinav Manohar, Simarjeet Singh

Lucknow Super Giants: 1 Aiden Markram, 2 Mitchell Marsh, 3 Nicholas Pooran, 4 Rishabh Pant (capt & wk), 5 Ayush Badoni, 6 Abdul Samad, 7 Akash Deep, 8 Ravi Bishnoi, 9 Digvesh Rathi, 10 Avesh Khan, 11 Will O'Rourke

Impact Player bench: Himmat Singh, Shahbaz Ahmed, M Siddharth, Shardul Thakur, David Miller