Rishabh Pant: We are going to bowl first. The wicket looks good, Happy to win the last two matches. As a team, we talk about the process and the team is responding well now.

Lucknow Super Giants have won the toss and have opted to field

Shamar Joseph has just marked his run-up

Pitch Report | Murali Kartik and Shane Watson: "It's pretty warm. Dimensions - 63m and 70m square boundaries, 73m straight down the ground. Coming back to the surface, it's pitch no. 6 which was used previously. It was relaid in 2023, it has settled down nicely, the scores are going up and this is a black soil pitch. This is a really nice surface as we saw in the previous game as well - 203 runs scored by LSG. Just coming down to have a look at the surface, it's a little bit patchy, there's a decent amount of grass cover. But one thing you do notice is it's shiny, it's got a nice sheen on it. It's going to be a really nice surface. The one thing we do know from the previous game was the pacers used the pitch, they bowled into the surface - five out of ten ten wickets were taken from bowling short into the pitch. Hardik Pandya, in particular, used that change of pace very nicely to effect. For the pacers, that's going to be the order of the day. Don't be surprised if it's another high-scoring game. The bowlers need to use those big square boundaries."

Here's Prakash Govindasreenivasan, our correspondent from the Ekana stadium - "Today's game will be played on a black soil pitch. Yesterday, the ground staff ran the roller on two side by side pitches - a black soil one and a mixed soil one, and kept both under covers. But they've put the stumps up on the black soil one today. This pitch is adjacent to the centre wicket so the square boundary on one side will be slightly shorter."

In the bowling department, it's fair to say that GT look superior as they have an all-round attack. Even Kagiso Rabada's absence hasn't been felt. In fact, they are happily fielding just three overseas players and are sitting pretty at the top of the table with four successive wins. Another key point is that they've been successful despite Rashid Khan struggling a bit.

Let's look at the batting first. Four out of the five top-scorers of this season - Nicholas Pooran (288), Sai Sudharsan (273), Mitchell Marsh (265), Jos Buttler (204) - will be in action today.

14:25 Local Time, 08:55 GMT, 14:25 IST: Hello everyone and warm welcome to the 26th match of IPL 2025. It's #1 vs #6 but the two teams are separated by just two points. It's the battle between the two newest entrants of IPL. Gujarat Titans have a superior head-to-head record against Lucknow Super Giants having won four of the five encounters. What's in store today? 

Preview by Prakash Govindasreenivasan

For teams not named Delhi Capitals, life at home has not been perfect in IPL 2025 irrespective of where they sit on the points table. For a few, it's been marred with trying to understand what's on offer in the 22-yards in front of them and whether it can be congruent with the skills that they pack. Taming home conditions has just not come easy, but on Saturday, Lucknow Super Giants will take another stab at it.

LSG had a dramatic start to the season as a defeat to PBKS trigger a head-turning comment from Zaheer Khan. A switch up from red soil pitch to a black soil one gave them a win in the second game - but perhaps not with the sort of control they would've envisioned. Wins in Hyderabad and Kolkata have helped them keep pace with the top-four even if they currently sit outside the periphery of playoffs spots.

As the tournament progresses and more teams vie to climb up the rungs, LSG's bowling capabilities could be put to the sword. Their expensively assembled Indian attack has done just about enough in two of their three wins, but were also lacklustre in both the defeats. The batting is doing most of the heavy-lifting at the moment, but there's the inherent risk of a lopsided effort like that getting punished in the long run.

Now that we're on heavy lifting, Gujarat Titans have also had their top three and impact substitute Sherfane Rutherford shoulder the bulk of the run-making in their wins, until the last game. GT could've been victims of their own success, but had Shahrukh Khan and Rahul Tewatia mop up after a rare top-order failure to post a winning total. Coincidentally, GT too pack an all-India pace attack in the absence of Kagiso Rabada, which has combined well in their four victories.

While teams with richer histories and deeper narrative threads have hogged the limelight, GT have gone about their work to calmly rise up to the top of the table, in an understated way like they did in 2022. As for LSG, their start to this season mirrors their forgettable campaign of 2024, where they began in a topsy-turvy manner and maintained that inconsistency all the way through. Ashish Nehra might want to put GT on the same path from three seasons ago where they picked 16 of the first 20 available points to distance themselves from the chasing pack. LSG however, will want to go in a completely different direction to the last season, starting with another win on Saturday afternoon.

When: Lucknow Super Giants vs Gujarat Titans, April 12th, 03:30 PM IST

Where: Bharat Ratna Shri Atal Bihari Vajpayee Ekana Cricket Stadium

What to expect: A hot day and more grappling with conditions? On the eve of the game, the ground staff ran the roller on two of the nine pitches at the venue - one a black soil surface and another a mixed one. This was perhaps done in preparation for the next fixture at the venue (against CSK), that comes with just a day's break on Monday (April 14).

As the evening progressed, the ground staff seemed to focus a little more in terms of preparation on the black soil pitch, situated beside the centre wicket (mixed soil). But for what it's worth, both the strips were covered in an identical manner by the end of the evening.

Head to head: LSG 1 - 4 GT. Lucknow's only win over this opposition came at this venue last year when they successfully defended 163/5.

Team Watch:

Lucknow Super Giants

Injury/Availability: Mayank Yadav continues to be unavailable.

Tactics & Matchups: Avesh Khan could be crucial up front against two of GT's top three. Avesh has dismissed Shubman Gill twice in 51 deliveries in T20s since 2022, giving away only 64 runs. He's been a touch expensive against Jos Buttler (43 off 23 balls) in the same period, but has also dismissed him thrice. GT's No.4 Shahrukh Khan too has not got the better of Avesh, falling twice in just seven deliveries faced.

Probable XII: Mitchell Marsh, Aiden Markram, Nicholas Pooran, Rishabh Pant (c & wk), Ayush Badoni, David Miller, Abdul Samad, Shardul Thakur, Akash Deep, Avesh Khan, Digvesh Rathi, Ravi Bishnoi

Gujarat Titans:

Injury/Availability: Kagiso Rabada has not returned since leaving for South Africa last week due to personal reasons.

Tactics & Matchups: Rashid Khan has had an ordinary start to the season, and yet he could be GT's man to deal with the six-hitting menace of Nicholas Pooran. LSG's swashbuckler has smashed 24 sixes this season - nine more than the next best (Mitchell Marsh). Though Rashid's stock leg spinner turns into Pooran's six-hitting arc, the Afghan has fared well against him in T20s since 2022 - dismissing him twice while conceding just 77 off 66 deliveries.

Probable XII: Sai Sudharsan, Shubman Gill (c), Jos Buttler (wk), Sherfane Rutherford, Shahrukh Khan, Rahul Tewatia, Arshad Khan, Rashid Khan, Ravisrinivasan Sai Kishore, Mohammed Siraj, Prasidh Krishna, Kulwant Khejroliya/Washington Sundar

Did You Know?

- Nicholas Pooran has a T20 strike rate of 150.08 in 363 innings. At the Ekana stadium in Lucknow, it drops to 132.52 (273 runs in 16 innings). The venue has the reverse effect on Ayush Badoni - who has a career T20 strike rate of 135.43 (65 innings) while rises to 142.07 at the Lucknow venue (287 runs in 18 innings).

- Shubman Gill has 176 runs in 5 innings against LSG - scored at a strike rate of 139.68. Rishabh Pant, who has made a woeful start to the season, has 147 runs in 3 innings at a strike rate of 177.1 against GT

What They Said:

"It is good to see the combination of both Ashish Nehra and Shubman, they work very well, it is like hand in glove, so it is good for the players around to see how things unfold." - Shahrukh Khan on the captain-coach dynamic at GT

"My personal game... I feel like I'm in a good space, hitting the ball really well, obviously batting behind the top four or five batters that have been doing really, really well in the competition. So just trying to fulfill my role wherever I can and as best as I can." - David Miller

Squads:

Lucknow Super Giants Squad: Mitchell Marsh, Aiden Markram, Nicholas Pooran, Rishabh Pant(w/c), Ayush Badoni, David Miller, Abdul Samad, Shardul Thakur, Akash Deep, Avesh Khan, Digvesh Singh Rathi, Ravi Bishnoi, Prince Yadav, Shahbaz Ahmed, Matthew Breetzke, Himmat Singh, Manimaran Siddharth, Akash Maharaj Singh, Shamar Joseph, Arshin Kulkarni, Yuvraj Chaudhary, RS Hangargekar, Aryan Juyal

Gujarat Titans Squad: Sai Sudharsan, Shubman Gill(c), Jos Buttler(w), Sherfane Rutherford, Shahrukh Khan, Rahul Tewatia, Arshad Khan, Rashid Khan, Ravisrinivasan Sai Kishore, Mohammed Siraj, Prasidh Krishna, Kulwant Khejroliya, Washington Sundar, Nishant Sindhu, Anuj Rawat, Ishant Sharma, Mahipal Lomror, Glenn Phillips, Gerald Coetzee, Karim Janat, Manav Suthar, Gurnoor Brar, Kumar Kushagra, Jayant Yadav