22 March,2026 01:33 PM IST | Mumbai | mid-day online correspondent
Faf du Plessis (Pic: File Pic)
The upcoming edition of the Indian Premier League (IPL) is all set to kick off from March 28. So far, the schedule of only first 20 matches has been released due to state elections.
Ahead of the league, former South African cricketer Faf du Plessis feels that Lucknow Super Giants' (LSG) captain Rishabh Pant will be under the most pressure. He also explained that in the previous edition, the left-handed batsman struggled to find himself among the runs, and in this season, there will be expectations from his team.
"For me, Rishabh Pant is probably the player in the IPL who is under the most pressure this season. Some guys flourish under the pressure of the price tag, while some do not. I think last season was a really tough one for him. The team struggled, and he also struggled with runs in the way that he batted. So, there is all that pressure coming into the season, along with the expectations of what the team is going to do," he said.
The first match of the tournament is scheduled to be played between the defending champions, Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) and Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) at the M. Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bengaluru.
Lucknow will begin their IPL 2026 campaign by playing a clash against Delhi Capitals (DC) on April 1 at the Ekana Cricket Stadium B Ground in Lucknow.
Lucknow Super Giants: Mitchell Marsh, Mohammed Shami, Shahbaz Ahmed, Anrich Nortje, Nicholas Pooran (WK), Aiden Markram, Avesh Khan, Wanindu Hasaranga, Himmat Singh, Matthew Breetzke, Rishabh Pant (C) (WK), Josh Inglis (WK), M Siddharth, Mohsin Khan, Ayush Badoni, Arjun Tendulkar, Akash Singh, Abdul Samad, Arshin Kulkarni, Naman Tiwari, Akshat Raghuwanshi, Mayank Yadav, M Choudhary (WK), Prince Yadav, Digvesh Rathi.
Delhi Capitals: David Miller, Mitchell Starc, Dushmantha Chameera, KL Rahul (WK), Karun Nair, Axar Patel (C), Ben Duckett (WK), Kuldeep Yadav, Nitish Rana, Kyle Jamieson, Lungi Ngidi, T. Natarajan, Mukesh Kumar, Pathum Nissanka, Ajay Mandal, Prithvi Shaw, Ashutosh Sharma, Auqib Nabi, Sameer Rizvi, Tristan Stubbs, Abhishek Porel (WK), Vipraj Nigam, Tipurana Vijay, Sahil Parakh, Madhav Tiwari.
(With ANI Inputs)
