Hyderabad, April 5 (IANS): Many changes have been made to the playing elevens of both Sunrisers Hyderabad and Chennai Super Kings as the hosts’ skipper Pat Cummins won the toss and elected to bowl first at the Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium here on Friday evening.

For SRH, left-arm fast-bowler T. Natarajan returns from injury while seam-bowling all-rounder Nitish Kumar Reddy comes in place of Mayank Agarwal, who’s not playing due to an illness. “Looks like a good wicket and should stay the same for the whole match. We've got a great squad. Few games, still trying to get my head around the Impact Player. Consistency is the key. Last time, there were 500 runs scored, this looks like a good wicket as well,” said captain Cummins.

CSK skipper Ruturaj Gaikwad, who got loud cheers from a majorly yellow-wearing crowd in the stadium, said his team has made three changes. With Mustafizur Rahman not around as he had to fly back home to sort out his T20 World Cup visa issues and Matheesha Pathirana nursing a niggle, Moeen Ali, Maheesh Theekshana and Mukesh Choudhary come into the playing XI.

Though Choudhary, who hasn’t played competitive cricket after December 2022 due to lower-back and rib injuries, is not in the starting XI, he could come in once Shivam Dube is done with his batting innings. “So far so good, last game we were close. Everyone is in good head space. For me, I have done captaincy, nothing new. I just want to be myself and just take things forward. The bowlers are ready to go and so are the youngsters,” he said.

Playing XIs:

Chennai Super Kings: Ruturaj Gaikwad (captain), Rachin Ravindra, Ajinkya Rahane, Moeen Ali, Daryl Mitchell, Shivam Dube, Ravindra Jadeja, MS Dhoni (wicketkeeper), Deepak Chahar, Tushar Deshpande and Maheesh Theekshana

Impact Substitutes: Shardul Thakur, Shaik Rasheed, Mitchell Santner, Sameer Rizvi and Mukesh Choudhary

Sunrisers Hyderabad: Abhishek Sharma, Aiden Markram, Heinrich Klaasen (wicketkeeper), Abdul Samad, Nitish Reddy, Shahbaz Ahmed, Pat Cummins (captain), Jaydev Unadkat, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Mayank Markande and T Natarajan

Impact Substitutes: Umran Malik, Washington Sundar, Travis Head, Glenn Phillips and Rahul Tripathi