Gujarat Titans (GT) captain Shubman Gill has missed the team’s second Indian Premier League (IPL) IPL 2026 match against the Rajasthan Royals at the Narendra Modi Stadium. Vice-captain Rashid Khan came out for the toss and revealed that Gill is sidelined due to a muscle spasm. The team is hopeful he will recover soon and be available for upcoming matches.
GT are coming into this game after losing their tournament opener against the Punjab Kings, where Gill scored 39 runs. On the other hand, RR started their campaign on a high note, defeating Chennai Super Kings in their first match.
For the toss, RR captain Riyan Parag won and chose to bowl first. With Gill unavailable, GT brought in Kumar Kushagra as his replacement. Meanwhile, RR made two changes to their lineup, bringing in Tushar Deshpande for Brijesh and Shubham Dubey for Bishnoi.
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Captains as toss
Rashid Khan | GT skipper: Well, we wanted to bowl first as well. Fresh wicket and I feel like there will be some help for the bowlers initially, but we are quite happy with the toss so far. Gill has got bit of a muscle spasm, hopefully he will be back soon. KK (Kumar Kushagra) is playing his first game and look forward to see him play. I think we played good cricket (in the last game). I feel in the last game as well, it was a very close game, but some of the areas we need to improve our bowling and also with the batting. And we spoke a lot about that in the meetings and we just need to bring our A-game here and give our 100%. So I feel like we did really well in the last game as well, but we take the positive things from that and we keep improving our skills in our game.
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Riyan Parag | RR skipper: We are going to be batting first. We got to assess and adapt to different conditions. Hopefully we will put up a good score around 210 and defend it later on. We want to be a team that can play in all conditions. I want it to be a team that is flexible. We don't want to play one brand of cricket. We don't want to be a team that only scores or bowls for 200 runs or 250 runs. I think, like I said, I want us to assess the pitch, play through all conditions that the IPL offers to us, and be good at it. So I think that's the message. Two changes. Tushar Deshpande comes in for Brijesh and Shubham Dubey comes in for Bishnoi.
GT vs RR playing XIs
Gujarat Titans: Kumar Kushagra, B Sai Sudharsan, Jos Buttler (wk), Washington Sundar, Glenn Phillips, Rahul Tewatia, Rashid Khan (c), Kagiso Rabada, Prasidh Krishna, Mohammed Siraj, and Ashok Sharma.
Rajasthan Royals: Vaibhav Sooryavanshi, Yashasvi Jaiswal, Dhruv Jurel (wk), Riyan Parag (c), Shimron Hetmyer, Donovan Ferreira, Ravindra Jadeja, Jofra Archer, Nandre Burger, Tushar Deshpande, and Sandeep Sharma.