Punjab Kings won the toss and opted to bowl in the 18th match of the Indian Premier League 2025 against Rajasthan Royals on Saturday, April 5, at the Maharaja Yadavindra Singh International Cricket Stadium in Mullanpur, Chandigarh. Punjab Kings are coming off a dominant victory over Lucknow Super Giants. Meanwhile, Rajasthan Royals will look to build on their first win of the season, which came under Riyan Parag’s leadership against Chennai Super Kings.
What Both Skippers Said at the Toss:
Shreyas Iyer, captain of Punjab Kings, said: "We'll bowl first. Looking at the last game, we were playing on a new wicket and we want to see how the pitch plays. Same mindset here as well. We need to stabilise the rhythm from game one and that's happened. Important to steady the ship from here, boys are in high spirits. Need to maintain composure and calmness throughout the season. We've played the practice games here so we know how the wicket will play. We played our last two games on red soil so hopefully we can adapt early. We have the mindset of champions. Bowling first, no changes for us. Will change things around maybe with the impact sub."
Sanju Samson, captain of Rajasthan Royals, said: "Pretty happy to bat first and put on a decent total. (On playing as an impact sub earlier) I could feel what the coaches would be going through, a bit restless and helpless. But excited to be back now. It is a new team and team management, we have got to know each other now and it takes a bit of time. We are geling better now, last game we pretty much had the perfect game. We have a small niggle for Tushar Deshpande, so he's out for today and Yudhvir comes in for him."
Here are the Impact substitutes for both the teams:
Rajasthan Royals Impact Subs: Kunal Singh Rathore, Shubham Dubey, Fazalhaq Farooqi, Kumar Kartikeya Akash Madhwal
Punjab Kings Impact Subs: Priyansh Arya, Harpreet Brar, Praveen Dubey, Vishnu Vinod, Vyshak Vijaykumar
Teams:
Punjab Kings (Playing XI): Prabhsimran Singh(w), Shreyas Iyer(c), Marcus Stoinis, Nehal Wadhera, Glenn Maxwell, Shashank Singh, Suryansh Shedge, Marco Jansen, Arshdeep Singh, Lockie Ferguson, Yuzvendra Chahal
Rajasthan Royals (Playing XI): Yashasvi Jaiswal, Sanju Samson(c), Nitish Rana, Riyan Parag, Dhruv Jurel(w), Shimron Hetmyer, Wanindu Hasaranga, Jofra Archer, Maheesh Theekshana, Yudhvir Singh Charak, Sandeep Sharma
Match Details:
Date: Saturday, 5 April 2025
Time: 7:30 PM IST
Venue: Maharaja Yadavindra International Cricket Stadium, Chandigarh
Broadcast and Streaming Information:
The match will be broadcast live on the Star Sports Network channels across India. Fans can also catch the live streaming of the game on the JioHotstar app and website.