Punjab Kings and Lucknow Super Giants will face each other today in the 54th match of IPL 2025 at the HPCA Stadium in Dharamsala. The venue is hosting its first match of the season and all eyes will be on the behaviour of the pitch. Here’s the pitch report:
Punjab Kings will lock horns against Lucknow Super Giants today in the 54th match of the Indian Premier League (IPL) at the Himachal Pradesh Cricket Association Stadium in Dharamsala. Both teams are in the hunt to make it to the playoffs but they are left with very little to no margin for error.
PBKS are in fourth position after 10 matches with six wins and have 13 points while LSG, led by Rishabh Pant, are in sixth place with 10 points after five wins and as many losses so far. Top four teams in the points table are getting stacked on the same points and both teams need to start winning soon and consistently.
As far as the venue for this match is concerned, Dharamsala hosted two matches in IPL 2024. This time around, the venue has been awarded three matches, even as PBKS played only four home matches in Mullanpur. The team will be hoping to get on a winning run at their second home venue.
Dharamsala pitch report
The surface in Dharamsala is generally decent for batting, even as the new ball swings a lot early on. In the last four matches, the team batting first has won three of them. Interestingly, RCB smashed 241 runs last season at this venue with Kohli smashing 92 runs. However, in the other match, CSK managed to defend 167 runs as well.
Dharamsala Pitch Report – IPL Numbers Game (2023 and 2024 season considered)
Matches Played – 4
Matches won batting first – 3
Matches won bowling first – 1
Average 1st inns score – 202
Highest first inns score – 241 by RCB vs PBKS
Highest score chased – 189 by RR vs PBKS
Squads
Lucknow Super Giants Squad: Mitchell Marsh, Aiden Markram, Nicholas Pooran, Rishabh Pant(w/c), Ayush Badoni, David Miller, Abdul Samad, Ravi Bishnoi, Avesh Khan, Prince Yadav, Digvesh Singh Rathi, Mayank Yadav, Yuvraj Chaudhary, Shahbaz Ahmed, Himmat Singh, Akash Maharaj Singh, Matthew Breetzke, Shardul Thakur, Manimaran Siddharth, Aryan Juyal, RS Hangargekar, Akash Deep, Shamar Joseph, Arshin Kulkarni
Punjab Kings Squad: Priyansh Arya, Prabhsimran Singh, Shreyas Iyer(c), Nehal Wadhera, Shashank Singh, Josh Inglis(w), Suryansh Shedge, Marco Jansen, Harpreet Brar, Azmatullah Omarzai, Yuzvendra Chahal, Arshdeep Singh, Xavier Bartlett, Praveen Dubey, Musheer Khan, Vijaykumar Vyshak, Glenn Maxwell, Marcus Stoinis, Vishnu Vinod, Yash Thakur, Aaron Hardie, Kuldeep Sen, Harnoor Singh, Pyla Avinash