Punjab Kings captain Shreyas Iyer won the toss and put faith in his "powerhouse" batting line-up by choosing to set a total. There were some changes to that XI that's been putting up those big runs with Marcus Stoinis and Josh Inglis still to return to the IPL. In their absence, BBL winner, with a century in the final this season, Mitchell Owen, and fast bowler Xavier Bartlett get a go.
The break allowed Rajasthan Royals captain Sanju Samson time to recover from his abdomen injury earlier this season and he seemed happy with the way the toss went, saying he wanted to bowl anyway. Samson based that on the way the pitch had behaved during the last match played on it, against Royal Challengers Bengaluru, when it was a bit slow to start off.
Samson confirmed that RR will continue opening with 14-year-old Vaibhav Suryavanshi and it will be him shifting down the order to accommodate the youngster after his record-breaking century at the top of the order. Nitish Rana made way. The other change - along expected lines - was South Africa's Kwena Maphaka coming in for Jofra Archer who did not rejoin the team for the IPL's resumption.
Rajasthan Royals bowl-first XI: 1 Yashasvi Jaiswal, 2 Vaibhav Suryavanshi, 3 Sanju Samson (capt, wk), 4 Riyan Parag, 5 Shimron Hetmyer, 6 Dhruv Jurel, 7 Wanindu Hasaranga, 8 Kwena Maphaka, 9 Tushar Deshpande, 10 Akash Madhwal, 11 Fazalhaq Farooqi
Impact Subs: Shubham Dubey, Yudhvir Singh, Kumar Kartikeya, Ashok Sharma, Kunal Rathore
PBKS bat-first XI: 1 Prabhsimran Singh (wk), 2 Priyansh Arya, 3 Shreyas Iyer (capt), 4 Mitchell Owen, 5 Nehal Wadhera, 6 Shashank Singh, 7 Azmatullah Omarzai, 8 Marco Jansen, 9 Xavier Bartlett, 10 Arshdeep Singh, 11 Yuzvendra Chahal
Impact Subs: Harpreet Brar, Pravin Dubey, Suryansh Shedge, Vijaykumar Vyshak, Musheer Khan