New Chandigarh, March 31 Punjab Kings won the toss and chose to bowl first against the Gujarat Titans in match four of the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2026, which was played at the PCA New International Cricket Stadium on Tuesday. Punjab Kings had a successful campaign in IPL 2025, finishing as runners-up and achieving one of their best performances in the tournament's history.
On the other hand, the Gujarat Titans had a strong IPL 2025 campaign, finishing 3rd in the league stage under captain Shubman Gill. GT lost the Eliminator to Mumbai Indians by 20 runs.
These two teams also began their seasons against each other in 2025, with Punjab Kings winning by 11 runs at the Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad.
After winning the toss, Punjab Kings captain Shreyas Iyer said, "We're going to bowl first. I firmly believe that chasing gives you a good idea of how to approach the target. And, we also played a couple of practice games, and whatever total was scored, I think it was easily chased down. So, with that in mind, I'm making this decision. We had a phenomenal last season. We need to focus on the present. We don't need to think about the past. We need to play our best brand of cricket. Cooper has come in. Stoinis, Bartlett, and Marco Jansen are the four overseas players."
Meanwhile, after losing the toss, Gujarat Titans captain Shubman Gill said, "The wicket looks pretty good. It has been raining on and off over the last two days. It looks like a good wicket to bat on. Last year, we had a pretty good season. We have Glenn and Ashok Sharma making their debut. We also have Jos, Glenn, Rashid, and Rabada. He (Buttler) is such an experienced player, I'm sure he's going to have a great year for us."
Punjab Kings and Gujarat Titans have faced each other six times in IPL history, with both sides giving each other tough competition. The head-to-head record is tied, with PBKS winning three encounters, and GT also coming victorious on three occasions.
Playing XIs:
Punjab Kings: Prabhsimran Singh (wk), Cooper Connolly, Shreyas Iyer (c), Nehal Wadhera, Shashank Singh, Marcus Stoinis, Marco Jansen, Xavier Bartlett, Vijaykumar Vyshak, Arshdeep Singh, Yuzvendra Chahal
Impact substitutes: Priyansh Arya, Harpreet Brar, Praveen Dubey, Vishnu Vinod, Suryansh Shedge
Gujarat Titans: Sai Sudharsan, Shubman Gill (c), Jos Buttler (wk), Washington Sundar, Glenn Phillips, M Shahrukh Khan, Rahul Tewatia, Rashid Khan, Kagiso Rabada, Ashok Sharma, Mohammed Siraj
Impact substitutes: Prasidh Krishna, Jason Holder, Jayant Yadav, Manav Suthar, Kumar Kushagra