Toss drama! RCB captain hands over wrong team sheet, makes bizarre blunder in LSG clash | Cricket News
NEW DELHI: Royal Challengers Bengaluru stand-in captain Jitesh Sharma won the toss and opted to bowl first against Lucknow Super Giants in Match 70 of the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2025 at the Bharat Ratna Shri Atal Bihari Vajpayee Ekana Cricket Stadium on Tuesday. RCB made two changes to their playing XI, with regular skipper Rajat Patidar still starting on the bench and likely to be used as an Impact Substitute. Despite recovering from injury, Josh Hazlewood was left out, while Liam Livingstone replaced Tim David and Nuwan Thushara came in for Lungi Ngidi.“We will field first. Looks like a good wicket, we’ll fancy to chase. Rajat Patidar is our impact player. Looking to win and make it into the top-2. Tim David misses out, Liam comes in, so does Thushara, he replaces Ngidi who left the team,” Jitesh Sharma said.
Lucknow Super Giants captain Rishabh Pant said the team would stick to their aggressive style of play. LSG also made two changes to their XI, with Matthew Breetzke and Digvesh Rathi coming in.
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Was it a good decision for RCB to bowl first?
“We don’t mind batting or bowling first, we did show the glimpse of the potential in our last game, but every match is a learning curve, till the last ball is bowled, we will give our 100 percent. Few changes – Breetzke is in and Digvesh Rathi is back in,” Pant said.DRAMA AT THE TOSSThere was a moment of drama during the toss.Jitesh Sharma announced that Rajat Patidar would come in as the Impact Player during the second innings. However, the official team sheet had Patidar listed among the starting XI. This confusion occurred because Jitesh mistakenly handed over RCB’s batting-first team sheet to the match referee.As RCB were fielding first, they quickly corrected the error by submitting the appropriate team sheet after receiving approval from the LSG team management.The entire mix-up was picked up and narrated by the commentators on live television.RCB’s team sheets:
Playing XIs:Lucknow Super Giants: Rishabh Pant (wk, capt), Nicholas Pooran, Mitchell Marsh, Matthew Breetzke, Ayush Badoni, Abdul Samad, Himmat Singh, Shahbaz Ahmed, Digvesh Rathi, Avesh Khan, William O’RourkeImpact Substitutes: Yuvraj Chaudhary, Arshin Kulkarni, Akash Singh, Prince Yadav, Ravi Bishnoi
Royal Challengers Bengaluru: Phil Salt, Virat Kohli, Mayank Agarwal, Liam Livingstone, Jitesh Sharma (wk), Romario Shepherd, Krunal Pandya,Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Yash Dayal, Nuwan Thushara, Suyash SharmaImpact Substitutes: Tim Seifert, Swapnil Singh, Rajat Patidar, Rasikh Salam, Manoj Bhandage
