Revealed: Why Wriddhiman Saha, Azmatullah Omarzai are not playing today's match against LSG and who have replaced them?

In a huge blow, Gujarat Titans (GT) missed the services of the star wicketkeeper-batter Wriddhiman Saha and all-rounder Azmatullah Omarzai in the 21st match of the Indian Premier League 2024 (IPL 2024) against the KL Rahul-led Lucknow Super Giants (LSG) on Sunday, April 7 at the Bharat Ratna Shri Atal Bihari Vajpayee Ekana Cricket Stadium, Lucknow

Lucknow Super Giants won the toss and opted to bat first in the match. They fielded an unchanged playing XI and on the other hand Gujarat Titans (GT) were forced to make two changes as they had injuries in the team.

The veteran opener and wicketkeeper-batter Wriddhiman Saha had a neck spasm while Azmatullah Omarzai had a side strain. Saha has been underwhelming with the bat in the competition for GT as he had registered scores of 19, 21, 25, and 11 in the first four matches. Azmatullah Omarzai, meanwhile, picked a total of 4 wickets in 4 matches, and with the bat he scored 11 and 17 runs in two matches.

To deal with the absence of Saha, Gujarat Titans handed the debut cap to Sharath BR and brought back the left-arm pacer Spencer Johnson to strengthen their bowling unit.

Wriddhiman Saha misses out due to a neck spasm and BR Sharath makes his debut for us - Shubman Gill

Speaking during the toss, Gill said that they were happy with the toss as anyway, they would have decided to bowl first in the match. He further spoke about the changes in the GT line-up. Gill elaborated:

"We would have bowled first, so happy. We were top on the game for 33 overs of the match, the last 7 overs didn't go in our favour. We have a couple of changes. Saha misses out due to a neck spasm and BR Sharath makes his debut for us. Spencer comes back in for Omarzai, who has a side strain. We got to forget what has happened in the previous match."

Here are the Impact substitutes for both the teams

Lucknow Super Giants Subs: Manimaran Siddharth, Deepak Hooda, Amit Mishra, Yudhvir Singh Charak, Arshad Khan

Gujarat Titans Subs: Kane Williamson, Abhinav Manohar, Matthew Wade, Manav Suthar, Jayant Yadav

Teams:

Lucknow Super Giants (Playing XI): Quinton de Kock, KL Rahul(w/c), Devdutt Padikkal, Marcus Stoinis, Nicholas Pooran, Ayush Badoni, Krunal Pandya, Ravi Bishnoi, Yash Thakur, Naveen-ul-Haq, Mayank Yadav

Gujarat Titans (Playing XI): Shubman Gill(c), Sharath BR(w), Sai Sudharsan, Vijay Shankar, Rahul Tewatia, Rashid Khan, Noor Ahmad, Umesh Yadav, Spencer Johnson, Darshan Nalkande, Mohit Sharma

The last year's finalists Gujarat Titans will be looking forward to defeating Lucknow Super Giants to continue their dominance over the KL Rahul-led side. So far the Shubman Gill-led side have won 2 out of 4 matches in the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2024 and are currently placed in the 7th position on the points table only above Mumbai Indians, Royal Challengers Bengaluru, and Delhi Capitals. A win over Lucknow Super Giants would help them enter the top 3.