KL Rahul's Delhi Capitals (DC) debut will have to wait as he missed the team's opening match against his former franchise Lucknow Super Giants (LSG) in Visakhapatnam to be at the birth of his first child.
New DC captain Axar Patel called correctly and had no hesitation in bowling first because they "don't want to take a risk with the dew later on".
Axar's counterpart was his former team-mate Rishabh Pant and the camaraderie between them was was evident at the toss. This is Axar's first stint as full-time DC captain, though he did lead the team for one match last season.
DC's four overseas players were Tristan Stubbs, Mitchell Starc, Jake Fraser-McGurk and Faf du Plessis. They are likely to bring in either Ashutosh Sharma or Karun Nair for the chase.
"We have a very good squad and I am very excited. There is dew, but it is different everyday," he said. "It is a big challenge [captaincy], but I have been with DC for a while and was in the leadership group. But I have to focus on myself. That is my thought process."
Pant, who until this season had only played for DC, said there was a "lot of emotion" with his old team, but is looking forward to a different experience. LSG named Mitchell Marsh, Aiden Markram, Nicholas Pooran and David Miller as their four overseas players. Their bowling attack had suffered huge blows with injuries to Mayank Yadav, Mohsin Khan, Avesh Khan and Akash Deep, and had an inexperienced look for the season opener. They are likely to bring in a fast bowler - Akash Singh or Rajvardhan Hangargekar - when bowling second.
Vizag, which is DC's second home ground has been a high-scoring venue. In the two matches here in IPL 2024, the first-innings scores were 191 and 272.
Lucknow Super Giants: 1 Aiden Markram, 2 Mitch Marsh, 3 Nicholas Pooran, 4 Rishabh Pant (capt & wk), 5 Ayush Badoni, 6 David Miller, 7 Shahbaz Ahmed, 8 Shardul Thakur, 9 Ravi Bishnoi, 10 Prince Yadav, 11 Digvesh Rathi
Delhi Capitals: 1 Faf du Plessis, 2 Jake Fraser-McGurk, 3 Abishek Porel (wk), 4 Sameer Rizvi, 5 Axar Patel (capt), 6 Tristan Stubbs, 7 Vipraj Nigam, 8 Mitchell Starc, 9 Kuldeep Yadav, 10 Mohit Sharma, 11 Mukesh Kumar