Nitish Kumar Reddy is back in action for Sunrisers Hyderabad in their IPL 2026 clash against the Punjab Kings at the Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium in Hyderabad on Wednesday, May 6. Nitish had missed out on featuring in SRH’s previous game against the Kolkata Knight Riders due to illness, but returns as his team made oneย change for the PBKS fixture.
PBKS captain Shreyas Iyer won the toss and opted to bowl first, stating that they will look to bounce back from their twin defeats. Shreyas confirmed that PBKS have made two changes with Shashank Singh and Lockie Ferguson returning. SRH have made one change as Reddy came in for Aniket Verma, while Smaran Ravichandranย kept his place.
“We’re going to bowl first. So far so good. We have got amazing learnings from our last couple of games. We got two losses, but still being at top of the table, it gives us immense motivation to come here and play today.Yes, there haven’t been any complaints. People have been putting hard yards in the practice and also off the field. You have to keep yourself up and running all the time, especially with the travelling and also rejuvenation after the match. So, you know, a bunch of professionals can’t complain and as long as you’re in a great headspace, that’s all that matters. I think the surface looks beautiful. There hasn’t been a single piece of grass since the time I’ve seen it. So based on that, I chose bowling. And also, if you see, the last match we played against SRH over here was on this wicket and they chased 245. So that also being one reason I chose to bowl. Yes, absolutely (want to correct his record vs SRH). Shashank comes in and Lockie comes in,” Shreyas said at the toss.
“Yeah, we would have had a bowl as well. But, you know, we’ve won a lot of games batting first, so not so upset. Yeah, that’s right. Wasn’t our day a couple of days ago, but I think we won five on the trot before that. Really positive group. We don’t have to look far back before looking at ourselves at our best. Absolutely, yeah (great support). They’ve been awesome the last few years. They love seeing good positive cricket, so hopefully we bring more of that tonight. Yeah, I can’t read pitches. They all seem to be pretty high scoring here. Maybe it slows up towards the end of the innings. It’s one positive bowling second, you get a decent look at the first innings. Nitish is back from illness. He comes in for Aniket,” Cummins said.
Playing XIs:
Punjab Kings (Playing XI): Prabhsimran Singh(w), Cooper Connolly, Shreyas Iyer(c), Shashank Singh, Suryansh Shedge, Marcus Stoinis, Marco Jansen, Lockie Ferguson, Vijaykumar Vyshak, Arshdeep Singh, Yuzvendra Chahal
Sunrisers Hyderabad (Playing XI): Abhishek Sharma, Travis Head, Ishan Kishan(w), Heinrich Klaasen, Salil Arora, Smaran Ravichandran, Nitish Kumar Reddy, Pat Cummins(c), Shivang Kumar, Eshan Malinga, Sakib Hussain
Punjab Kings Impact Subs: Priyansh Arya, Harpreet Brar, Xavier Bartlett, Vishnu Vinod, Musheer Khan
Sunrisers Hyderabad Impact subs: Aniket Verma, Praful Hinge, Liam Livingstone, Harsh Dubey, Harshal Patel