Ahmedabad, April 9 (IANS) Rajasthan Royals will be without the services of leg-spin all-rounder Wanindu Hasaranga as captain Sanju Samson won the toss and elected to bowl first against Gujarat Titans in Match 23 of Indian Premier League (IPL) 2025 at the Narendra Modi Stadium here on Wednesday.

Gujarat Titans (GT) are in second place in the points table, while Rajasthan Royals (RR) are in seventh position. A win for RR in Ahmedabad will take them to join a large six-point bandwagon. After winning the toss, Samson said Hasaranga was out due to personal reasons, with left-arm pacer Fazalhaq Farooqi replacing him in the playing eleven.

RR will also have Tushar Deshpande back after missing last game against Punjab Kings due to a niggle. Bowling first here because of the conditions. There is going to be dew here. Each and every game in the IPL is important.”

“We are grateful for the (wins in) last two games and take the momentum forward. It is great to be back. It is a very new team, with new guys in the squad; we retained six guys. But it is a new team, and we took time to gel together. The wicket looks really good,” he said.

GT skipper Shubman Gill said his playing eleven is unchanged and that he was looking to bowl first as well. “Looking at the past few matches, dew has come in during the second innings, but we have batted first here. We are taking it one game at a time and not keeping track of how many games we have won.”

“If the top 3 or 4 are doing the job, then I am happy with that. We have had a really good home run, and hopefully, nothing changes for us. Support from the fans has always been tremendous,” he said.

Wednesday’s match will be played on pitch number seven in the stadium, which is a red-soil surface, which means bowlers will get ample pace and bounce. One square boundary is at 60 metres, as compared to the other one standing at 71 metres, while the straight boundary is 73 metres.

Playing XIs:

Gujarat Titans: B. Sai Sudharsan, Shubman Gill (capt), Jos Buttler (wk), Sherfane Rutherford, Shahrukh Khan, Rahul Tewatia, Rashid Khan, R. Sai Kishore, Mohammed Siraj, Prasidh Krishna, and Ishant Sharma

Impact Substitutes: Washington Sundar, Nishant Sindhu, Anuj Rawat, Mahipal Lomror, and Arshad Khan

Rajasthan Royals: Yashasvi Jaiswal, Sanju Samson (capt & wk), Nitish Rana, Riyan Parag, Shimron Hetmyer, Dhruv Jurel, Jofra Archer, Maheesh Theekshana, Fazalhaq Farooqi, Sandeep Sharma, and Tushar Deshpande

Impact Substitutes: Kunal Singh Rathore, Shubham Dubey, Yudhvir Singh Charak, Kumar Kartikeya Singh, and Akash Madhwal