IPL 2026: Nitish Kumar Reddy-less SRH decide to bat against KKR, know playing XIs

Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) won the toss and opted to bat first against Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) in their important Indian Premier League (IPL) 2026 clash at the Rajiv Gandhi Stadium on May 3.

What did the captains say at the toss?

SRH captain Pat Cummins, after winning the toss, said:

"We'll bat first. Pitch looks good and it's very hot, we'll bat and post a total. I'm not good at reading the pitches, it loioks nice and must be high scoring. The younger players have been fantastic, the older ones have held their own, I think we've always gone past 220 barring once. We know we won't win every single game, but this style is working well for us. Nitish misses out with an illness, so Smaran comes in on his debut. Harshal Patel is in place of Harsh Dubey."

Meanwhile, KKR skipper Ajinkya Rahane, after losing the toss, said:

"We wanted to bat first as well. The break has really helped us, we've thought about the things we did well and the areas where we can improve. It's all about winning those small moments. We've got two changes: Finn Allen replaces Tim Seifert, and Manish Pandey plays his first game, replacing Ramandeep Singh."

Sunrisers Hyderabad Playing XI:

Abhishek Sharma, Travis Head, Ishan Kishan, Heinrich Klaasen, Salil Arora(w), Aniket Verma, Smaran Ravichandran, Pat Cummins(c), Shivang Kumar, Harshal Patel, Eshan Malinga

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Kolkata Knight Riders Playing XI:

Ajinkya Rahane(c), Angkrish Raghuvanshi(w), Cameron Green, Rovman Powell, Manish Pandey, Rinku Singh, Anukul Roy, Sunil Narine, Vaibhav Arora, Kartik Tyagi, Varun Chakaravarthy

Sunrisers Hyderabad Impact subs: Praful Hinge, Harsh Dubey, Liam Livingstone, Sakib Hussain, Zeeshan Ansari

Kolkata Knight Riders Impact subs: Finn Allen, Ramandeep Singh, Tejasvi Dahiya, Navdeep Saini, Tim Seifert