IPL 2026: SRH opt to bat against KKR; Smaran Ravichandran makes debut

Sunrisers Hyderabad won the toss and chose to bat against Kolkata Knight Riders in IPL 2026. SRH handed a debut to Smaran Ravichandran, while both teams made two changes ahead of the key mid-season encounter.

Hyderabad: Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) have won the toss and elected to bat first against Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) in the 45th match of IPL 2026 at the Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium on Sunday.

SRH have made two changes in their playing XI. Nitish Kumar Reddy missed out due to illness, and Smaran Ravichandran is making his debut for the team. While Harshal Patel is replacing Harsh Dubey.

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KKR have also made two changes as Finn Allen and Manish Pandey come in place of Tim Seifert and Ramandeep Singh.

After winning the toss, SRH captain Pat Cummins 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 looks 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 due to an illness, so Smaran comes in on his debut. Harshal Patel is in place of Harsh Dubey.”

While after losing the toss, KKR skipper Ajinkya Rahane 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.”

Playing XIs

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

Impact Substitutes: Harsh Dubey, Praful Hinge, Liam Livingston, Sakib Hussain, Zeeshan Ansari

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

Impact Substitutes: Fill Allen, Ramandeep Singh, Tejasvi Dahiya, Navdeep Saini,Tim Seifert