Lucknow Super Giants (LSG) and Delhi Capitals (DC) will play each other in their first game of the 2026 Indian Premier League (IPL) at the Ekana Stadium in Lucknow, which is also known as the Bharat Ratna Shri Atal Bihari Vajpayee Cricket Stadium. The fixture will start at 7:30 PM IST on Wednesday (April 1) with the toss scheduled to take place 30 minutes later.
All eyes will be on the playing surface at the Ekana Stadium, which still remains a mystery. The ground has two types of playing surfaces with both a red and black soil track. The stadium also has larger boundaries, which is rare among Indian grounds at the moment. This means that the ground is unlikely to see matches where only batters are dominating.
LSG VS DC IPL 2026 Pitch Report
Reports have revealed that a red-soil pitch will be used for today’s game. This will mean that there will be good bounce on offers, and batters should enjoy their time on the surface, as it will not be a sluggish batting track. However, pacers could get help too.
Overall, the ground has hosted 22 T20 matches with an average first innings batting score of 175. Nine matches have been won by the team batting first, while 12 times the team bowling first has emerged victorious. One game (India vs South Africa in December 2025) was abandoned.
LSG VS DC Playing XIs
LSG Likely Playing XI: Mitchell Marsh, Aiden Markram, Rishabh Pant (C & WK), Nicholas Pooran, Ayush Badoni, Abdul Samad, Mukul Choudhary, Anrich Nortje, Mohammad Shami, Mayank Yadav, Digvesh Rathi.
DC Likely Playing XI: Pathum Nissanka, KL Rahul (WK), Nitish Rana, Axar Patel (C), David Miller, Tristan Stubbs, Ashutosh Sharma, Vipraj Nigam, Auqib Dar, Kuldeep Yadav, Lungi Ngidi, Mukesh Kumar.
LSG Squad: Aiden Markram, Mitchell Marsh, Nicholas Pooran, Rishabh Pant(w/c), Abdul Samad, Ayush Badoni, Shahbaz Ahmed, Digvesh Singh Rathi, Avesh Khan, Anrich Nortje, Prince Yadav, Mohsin Khan, Akshat Raghuwanshi, Mohammed Shami, Matthew Breetzke, Josh Inglis, Himmat Singh, Mukul Choudhary, Arshin Kulkarni, Naman Tiwari, Arjun Sachin Tendulkar, Manimaran Siddharth, Mayank. Prabhu Yadav, Akash Maharaj Singh
DC Squad: KL Rahul(w), Prithvi Shaw, Abishek Porel, Axar Patel(c), Tristan Stubbs, Ashutosh Sharma, David Miller, Vipraj Nigam, Dushmantha Chameera, Kyle Jamieson, T Natarajan, Lungi Ngidi, Mukesh Kumar, Kuldeep Yadav, Nitish Rana, Karun Nair, Pathum Nissanka, Sahil Parakh, Sameer Rizvi, Madhav Tiwari, Auqib Nabi Dar, Tripurana Vijay, Ajay Jadav Mandal.
