Delhi Capitals captain Axar Patel won the toss and elected to bat first against table-toppers Punjab Kings (Image credit: BCCI/IPL) NEW DELHI: Delhi Capitals captain Axar Patel won the toss and elected to bat first against table-toppers Punjab Kings in their IPL 2026 encounter at the Arun Jaitley Stadium in Delhi on Saturday. DC are currently sixth in the points table and Axar admitted at the draw that the team made avoidable mistakes in the tournament.Both sides started with unchanged XIs – Delhi Capitals from their previous match and also Punjab Kings who are leading the table with five wins from six matches.
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“We didn’t play good cricket” – Mahela Jayawardene after MI’s biggest IPL loss vs CSK“We bat first. It looks a bit dry and of course it’s a day game and you know it’s quite hot too. So we’re thinking of putting up a good total first and then trying to defend it. (Do you think it’s going to be quite slow later on?) Yes, by the looks of it, it looks like it’s going to slow down a bit later and the bowlers could also get some help to take all the points we want to take from the bowling. wicket, we want to focus on yourself,” Axar said at the throw.“Every team we play plays good cricket. We’ve played good cricket too but the thing is, at key moments I don’t think we’re winning those moments in the game. We make silly mistakes and if we fix them I think we’ll get back on track. If the consistency comes and we fix the little mistakes we make in the field or in our decision-making, we’ll play the same way in the crucial moments.” he said.Punjab Kings captain Shreyas Iyer, who also named an unchanged XI, said, “It’s important to stay in the moment, that’s what you want the environment to be like. I personally feel that you just have to keep training harder and improving every moment, better than the previous performance. And that’s what I keep telling my teammates too.”“We have to instill the right habits in the dressing room and the culture we have built so far. And it has been going, touch wood, it’s going great. We have to keep enjoying the game and having fun together. I would love to bowl. And luckily I had a little discussion with Axar before the toss. He said he was going to bat, so we were happy to go the same way. team,” Iyer said.Teams:Punjab Kings (Playing XI): Prabhsimran Singh (w), Priyansh Arya, Cooper Connolly, Shreyas Iyer (c), Shashank Singh, Marcus Stoinis, Marco Jansen, Xavier Bartlett, Vijaykumar Vyshak, Arshdeep Singh, Yuzvendra Chahal.Delhi Capitals (Playing XI): KL Rahul (w), Pathum Nissanka, Sameer Rizvi, Axar Patel (c), Nitish Rana, Tristan Stubbs, David Miller, Lungi Ngidi, Kuldeep Yadav, T Natarajan, Mukesh KumarImpact Subs:Delhi Capitals: Vipraj Nigam, Karun Nair, Dushmantha Chameera, Ashutosh Sharma, Auqib Nabi DarKings of Punjab: Nehal Wadhera, Harpreet Brar, Suryansh Shedge, Yash Thakur, Vishnu Vinod
