Shubman Gill was very clear as soon as the coin landed in his favour in Gujarat Titans opening game of IPL 2025. He chose to bowl and reeled off all the reasons for it. One, the dew. They saw plenty of it over the last week as they practiced in Ahmedabad. Two, from experience, he understood "there is not much help for the spinners." And three, lots of big totals have been chased down at Narendra Modi stadium.
The new Punjab Kings captain Shreyas Iyer would have preferred to chase as well. Both captains will have noted that the team batting second has won five of the last six IPL games here. Iyer, playing for a new franchise this year after winning the IPL last year, had a headache picking his XI because he was "spoilt for choice." There were two IPL debutants among them, the opener Priyansh Arya and allrounder Suryansh Shedge.
A striking feature of both teams is the international quality in their bowling attacks. Kagiso Rabada will play his first game for his new franchise, the Titans, against his old franchise. His new-ball partner for South Africa will be on the other side this time, Marco Jansen. Mohammed Siraj is looking for a new start with Titans after being omitted from India's squad for the Champions Trophy, Two high quality spinners will be on show as well in Rashid Khan and Yuzvendra Chahal. It is, however, unlikely that they will get any help.
GT named only three overseas players in their bowling first XI, with either Glenn Phillips or Sherfane Rutherford likely to come in when they bat. Both are gun fielders, however, and will be missed in the first innings.
PBKS are likely to bring in one of seamer Vijaykumar Vyshak or left-arm spinner Harpreet Brar when they bowl second.
Gujarat Titans (bowling first XI): 1 Shubman Gill (capt), 2 Sai Sudharsan, 3 Jos Buttler, 4 Shahrukh Khan, 5 Rahul Tewatia, 6 R Sai Kishore, 7 Arshad Khan, 8 Rashid Khan, 9 Kagiso Rabada, 10 Mohammed Siraj, 11 Prasidh Krishna
Punjab Kings (batting first XI): 1 Prabhsimran Singh, 2 Priyansh Arya, 3 Shreyas Iyer (capt), 4 Shashank Singh, 5 Marcus Stoinis, 6 Glenn Maxwell, 7 Suryansh Shedge, 8 Azmatullah Omarzai, 9 Marco Jansen, 10 Arshdeep Singh, 11 Yuzvendra Chahal