Chennai, May 24 (IANS): Mumbai Indians captain Rohit Sharma won the toss and elected to bat first against Lucknow Super Giants in the Eliminator clash of IPL 2023 at the MA Chidambaram Stadium, here on Wednesday.
The winner of the Eliminator will play against defending champions Gujarat Titans in the Qualifier 2 at the Narendra Modi Stadium on Friday, while the losing team will be knocked out of the tournament.
After winning the toss, Rohit said off-spinner Hrithik Shokeen replaced left-arm spinner Kumar Kartikeya Singh in the playing eleven, with Tilak Varma also returning in place of Nehal Wadhera.
"Typical Chennai wicket. I am not sure how much wear and tear will happen. Back in Mumbai we prefer to chase, but here with a longer boundary, we want to bat first," said MI skipper.
"The boys are quite upbeat about it. At the end of the day, we are here. It was a long journey with ups and downs, and because of that we learnt a lot about our team as well. We are ready for this game," he added.
Lucknow skipper Krunal Pandya said he would have liked to bat first as well.
"It has been an up and down season, but we have fought and never gave up. We have got really good match-winners," said Krunal.
"Where we are, it's been an entire team effort, it's not one or two individuals. We would have batted as well but at the end of the day, you have to play good cricket. That's what matters," he added.
Both Mumbai and Lucknow have come to Chennai previously in this season, and both lost their respective league games at Chepauk. Mumbai have lost all three matches against Lucknow so far in the history of the competition.
Playing XIs:
Lucknow Super Giants: Prerak Mankad, Deepak Hooda, Marcus Stoinis, Nicholas Pooran (wicketkeeper), Krunal Pandya (captain), Ayush Badoni, Krishnappa Gowtham, Ravi Bishnoi, Naveen-ul-Haq, Yash Thakur and Mohsin Khan
Substitutes: Kyle Mayers, Daniel Sams, Yudhvir Singh, Swapnil Singh, Amit Mishra
Mumbai Indians: Rohit Sharma (captain), Ishan Kishan (wicketkeeper), Suryakumar Yadav, Tim David, Tilak Varma, Cameron Green, Chris Jordan, Hrithik Shokeen, Piyush Chawla, Jason Behrendorff and Akash Madhwal
Substitutes: Nehal Wadhera, Ramandeep Singh, Vishnu Vinod, Kumar Kartikeya, Sandeep Warrier