Virat Kohli returned to captain Royal Challengers Bangalore for the first time since 2021 at Mohali on Thursday. Sam Curran, who continues to lead Punjab Kings in the absence of Shikhar Dhawan, won the toss and asked RCB to bat first.

Kohli confirmed that Faf du Plessis is unfit to field due to his rib injury but would open the batting alongside him. In the second innings, he is likely to be subbed in with Vyshak Vijaykumar coming in as impact player.

“Faf potentially can’t be fielding today, so he’ll be playing as a impact player, switching with Vyshak. We got to do what we wanted, we would have batted first, the pitch could get slow, some scruff marks will help the bowlers going deep into the game. Taking one game at a time, focussing on our own game, make the most of crunch situations, we haven’t done that so far in the tournament,” said Kohli at the toss.

Meanwhile, PBKS made the big call of dropping the previous match’s player of the match, Sikandar Raza. Nathan Ellis returned while Kagiso Rabada was also missing from the Playing XI announced. However, Liam Livingstone, finally fit will be in action for the first time this year.

Teams:

Royal Challengers Bangalore: Virat Kohli(c), Faf du Plessis, Mahipal Lomror, Glenn Maxwell, Shahbaz Ahmed, Dinesh Karthik(w), Wanindu Hasaranga, Suyash Prabhudessai, Harshal Patel, Wayne Parnell, Mohammed Siraj

Impact substitutes - Vyshak Vijaykumar, David Willey, Karm Sharma, Akash Deep, Anuj Rawat

Punjab Kings: Atharva Taide, Matthew Short, Harpreet Singh Bhatia, Liam Livingstone, Sam Curran(c), Jitesh Sharma(w), Shahrukh Khan, Harpreet Brar, Nathan Ellis, Rahul Chahar, Arshdeep Singh

Impact substitutes - Prabhsimran Singh, Mohit Rathee, Shivam Singh, Rishi Dhawan, Sikandar Raza