On his IPL captaincy debut, Gautam Gambhir won the toss and put Kings XI Punjab in on a pitch whose curator has promised some carry. Like Delhi Daredevils, Punjab were also under a new captain, Kumar Sangakkara. Four big players made comebacks from injury to add interest to the encounter: Gambhir himself, Virender Sehwag, Yuvraj Singh and Irfan Pathan.
Delhi's overseas players were AB de Villiers, Tillkaratne Dilshan, Farveez Maharoof and Dirk Nannes. The big name missing for them was Ashish Nehra. Punjab, who gave a game to Mohammad Kaif, went for Sangakkara, Mahela Jayawardene, Ravi Bopara and Yusuf Abdulla as their foreign players.
Kings XI Punjab Kumar Sangakkara (capt & wk), Manvinder Bisla, Mahela Jayawardene, Yuvraj Singh, Ravi Bopara, Mohammad Kaif, Irfan Pathan, Piyush Chawla, Ramesh Powar, Sreesanth, Yusuf Abdulla
Delhi Daredevils: Gautam Gambhir (capt), Virender Sehwag, Tillakaratne Dilshan, AB de Villiers, Dinesh Karthik (wk), Mithun Manhas, Farveez Maharoof, Amit Mishra, Pradeep Sangwan, Yo Mahesh, Drik Nannes