Former champions Mumbai Indians and Kolkata Knight Riders will be aiming to get their campaign back on track when they face each other on Sunday and the biggest challenge for Rohit Sharma’s men will be to contain KKR’s rampaging batsmen.
Mumbai Indians broke their losing streak by defeating Delhi Capitals in the previous match while Kolkata Knight Riders were defeated by Sunrisers Hyderabad in a high-scoring match at the Eden Gardens.
Mumbai, the most successful team in the IPL, will be under immense pressure at the Wankhede Stadium despite winning the previous match. So far this season, Rohit Sharma’s team has not been seen in its familiar style. After two wins and two losses, KKR are fourth in the points table and have a very good run rate compared to Mumbai.
Rohit scored 65 against Delhi for Mumbai but he will have to perform consistently. At the same time, Suryakumar Yadav’s bad form is getting longer. Mumbai will miss fast bowler Joffra Archer, who has again become a victim of elbow problem after playing the first match. In such a situation, the responsibility of fast bowling will be on Jason Behrendorff and Riley Meredith while Piyush Chawla will look to repeat that form after taking three wickets in the last match.
Mumbai will be hoping for a good performance from the young brigade of Tim David, Cameron Green, Tilak Verma and Ishan Kishan. KKR registered a miracle win against Gujarat Titans and fought till the last ball against Sunrisers. Rinku Singh, who hit five sixes in the last over against Titans, gave sleepless nights to the opposition teams by scoring 58 runs in the last match.
Apart from him, Captain Nitish Rana, Venkatesh Iyer, Rahmanullah Gurbaj and Shardul Thakur have also scored runs. Andre Russell’s poor form is a cause of concern for KKR. He could not even complete four overs against Sunrisers and got injured but took three wickets.
Teams :
Kolkata Knight Riders: Nitish Rana (Captain), Rahmanullah Gurbaj, Venkatesh Iyer, Andre Russell, Sunil Narine, Shardul Thakur, Lockie Ferguson, Umesh Yadav, Tim Southee, Harshit Rana, Varun Chakraborty, Anukul Roy, Rinku Singh, N. Jagdeesan, Vaibhav Arora, Suyash Sharma, David Weiss, Kulwant Khejroliya, Liton Das and Mandeep Singh.
Mumbai Indians: Rohit Sharma (c), Suryakumar Yadav, Tim Davids, Devald Brewis, Tilak Verma, Ishan Kishan, Tristan Stubbs, Vishnu Vinod, Cameron Green, Arjun Tendulkar, Ramandeep Singh, Shams Mulani, Riley Meredith, Nehal Wadhera, Hrithik Shokin, Arshad Khan , Duane Jensen, Piyush Chawla, Kumar Kartikeya, Raghav Goyal, Jofra Archer, Jason Behrendorff, Akash Madhwal. Match time: 3.30 pm onwards.
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