Mumbai: After managing three wins in the first half of their IPL campaign, inconsistent Mumbai Indians may require five more wins in the second half to secure their place in the play-offs. They will be playing for the last time at Wankhede stadium this season and will be up against table toppers Kolkata Knight Riders.
The Gautam Gambhir & Co have won four out of five games and their only defeat came at the hands of Mumbai Indians at Eden Gardens. Rohit Sharma’s unbeaten 84 steered his side home in a chase of 180-plus. Rohit has scored three half centuries while chasing but his top score while batting first is seven. He has struggled against the moving ball initially and so has the rest of the team barring Ambati Rayudu and Parthiv Patel.
Rayudu has been scoring consistently since his elevation to the top order while Patel also has provided good starts. Both were instrumental in setting up 25-run win over bottom placed Kings XI Punjab in the last game. The big disappointments have been Kieron Pollard and Jos Butler. The big hitting foreign imports are yet to fire despite playing a winning hand each on separate occasions.
Mumbai Indians have good replacements on the bench but they have shown no faith in all-rounder Corey Anderson and aggressive opening batsman Martin Guptill who has played just one game. Hardik Pandya has also been out of form but his brother Krunal has played a couple of crucial cameos.
Their liking for the two-pronged foreign attack has worked with Tim Southee and Mitchell McClenaghan proving handy in defending high scores. Jasprit Bumrah has been lethal with his yorkers, leg-cutters and slow deliveries. They will want Harbhajan Singh to create pressure too.
KKR have been on a roll with openers Gautam Gambhir and Robin Uthappa providing good starts. They lost Manish Pandey to a bout of chicken pox in the last game but Suryakumar Yadav came in at No 3 and delivered. Yusuf Pathan also showed glimpses of form in the previous game and they have good all-rounders in Andre Rusell and Shakib Al Hasan.
