IPL 2026: Rajasthan Royals win toss, opt to bowl first against Chennai Super Kings

GUWAHATI: Rajasthan Royals (RR) won the toss and opted to bowl first against Chennai Super Kings (CSK) in their first match of the ongoing Indian Premier League (IPL) 2026 season on Monday at the Barsapara Cricket Stadium here.

After winning the toss, RR Captain Riyan Parag said that the wet conditions from recent rain are the reason he has opted to bowl first. He expressed excitement about captaining the team and praised the strong support, emphasising that the Royals aim to have a successful season.

“We are bowling first. There’s been a lot of rain. There’s going to be some moisture. It feels nice (to be captaining), the support has been incredible. Hopefully, a good campaign for us. The goal is to win the championship. We tried to have a lot of smart cricketers,” Riyan Parag said at the toss.

Toss @rajasthanroyals have won the toss and will field first in Guwahati!

Updates https://t.co/UzbuFk5G26#TATAIPL | #KhelBindaas | #RRvCSK pic.twitter.com/1o0WJiz5aK

— IndianPremierLeague (@IPL) March 30, 2026

Both Rajasthan Royals and Chennai Super Kings were involved in a high-profile trade ahead of this year’s IPL auction, where RR traded away Sanju Samson to CSK in exchange for the Chennai-based franchise’s players Ravindra Jadeja and Sam Curran.

RR start the new season under the leadership of Riyan Parag, signalling a fresh chapter after the exit of longtime franchise face Sanju Samson. With matches at his home ground, Parag will aim to lead by example as the Royals will look to improve on last season’s ninth-place finish.

The five-time champions CSK, after ending last season at the bottom of the table in 2025, will also look to kick off the season strongly as they chase their sixth IPL title under the captaincy of Ruturaj Gaikwad. Chennai Super Kings (CSK) Indian Premier League (IPL) 2026 campaign opener against Rajasthan Royals will mark the first-time ever that the iconic Yellow franchise will take to the field without either of their two icons, Suresh Raina and MS Dhoni.

CSK’s IPL 2026 campaign opener will be start of a new era of sorts for CSK. The Ruturaj Gaikwad captained side, with wicketkeeper-batter Sanju Samson being another marquee name in the squad, will witness several exciting, young, explosive talents taking to the field. However, the squad will have neither Raina, who retired from all formats of cricket in 2022, nor Dhoni, who will miss the first two weeks of the ongoing season due to a calf strain.

The five-time IPL champions have played 277 matches in franchise cricket, 253 in the IPL and 24 matches in now-defunct Champions League T20 tournament. Throughout these 277 matches, the franchise had either Raina or Dhoni and most of the time, both together in their playing XI. While Raina last played the IPL in the 2021 season before calling time on his cricketing career, Dhoni continued entertaining fans in a new avatar: A lower-order finisher tasked with hitting as many fours and sixes as possible within the death overs phase of the inning.

In 278 matches, Dhoni has made 5,439 runs in 242 innings at an average of 38.30 and a strike rate of 137.45, including 24 fifties and a best score of 84*. He is the sixth-highest run-getter in the tournament history. In last season’s wooden spoon finish, Dhoni scored 196 runs in 13 innings at an average of 24.50 and a strike rate of over 135, with a best score of 30*.

Raina is the fifth-highest run-getter in the tournament history, with 5,528 runs in 205 matches and 200 innings at an average of 32.51, a strike rate of 136.73, including a century and 39 fifties.

Rajasthan Royals: Vaibhav Sooryavanshi, Yashasvi Jaiswal, Dhruv Jurel (wk), Riyan Parag (captain), Shimron Hetmyer, Ravindra Jadeja, Jofra Archer, Nandre Burger, Sandeep Sharma, Ravi Bishnoi, Brijesh Sharma.

RR Impact Subs: Donovan Ferreira, Lhuan-dre Pretorius, Ravi Singh, Sushant Mishra, Tushar Deshpande.

Chennai Super Kings: Sanju Samson, Ruturaj Gaikwad(c), Ayush Mhatre, Matthew Short, Shivam Dube, Kartik Sharma(w), Jamie Overton, Noor Ahmad, Matt Henry, Anshul Kamboj, Khaleel Ahmed.

CSK Impact Subs: Sarfaraz Khan, Prashanth Veer, Rahul Chahar, Gurjapneet Singh, Ramakrishna Ghosh. (ANI)