Mumbai Indians faces a virtual must-win tie against Kolkata Knight Riders on Sunday afternoon to be in the reckoning for the play-offs. And Rohit Sharma and his team will be wary of one of the team’s finds, who dons KKR colours now.
Left-hander Nitish Rana has emerged as a vital cog in the KKR middle-order. Having did his back in while batting against Royal Challengers Bangalore last weekend, Rana was forced to miss the Knight Riders’ last game against Chennai Super Kings.
However, the visitors had a reason to smile as Rana looked fit during the team’s training on Saturday.
Rana started the session bowling his part-time off-spin — the quicker ones had accounted for Virat Kohli and A.B. de Villiers off successive deliveries early on in the tournament — and didn’t look in any trouble during his batting stint as well.
With Rana set to return to his allotted No. 4 position, Shubman Gill, who scored a match-winning 50 against CSK, may move down the order.
Rana would also be keen to mark his return to the Wankhede with another match-winning effort, albeit against his former team. One of the stars of the Mumbai Indians’ victorious campaign last year, Rana had scored a 29-ball 50 when these two teams last faced each other at this venue.
While Rana will be gunning for a repeat performance, Mumbai Indians will hope to restrict him and KKR’s other burly hitters to keep its IPL campaign alive.
MI’s spin attack — led by leggie Mayank Markande — will have to restrict Rana and the powerful middle-order including captain Dinesh Karthik and all-rounder Andre Russell.
However, for the spinners to come into play, the pace attack led by Jasprit Bumrah will have to first restrict the dangerous duo of Chris Lynn and Sunil Narine at the top. If the KKR batting order gets going, MI may find things getting difficult.
The last time MI played on home turf, it folded up for a paltry 87 chasing 119 against Sunrisers Hyderabad on a turning pitch. However, thanks to its convincing win against Kings XI Punjab in Indore on Friday night, MI has climbed to the middle of the points table from the bottom. The Knight Riders, though, may pose a stiffer challenge.
Teams (from):
Kolkata Knight Riders: Dinesh Karthik (captain), Sunil Narine, Andre Russell, Chris Lynn, Robin Uthappa, Kuldeep Yadav, Piyush Chawla, Nitish Rana, Prasidh Krishna, Shivam Mavi, Mitchell Johnson, Shubman Gill, R Vinay Kumar, Rinku Singh, Cameron Delport, Javon Searless, Apoorv Wankhade, Ishank Jaggi, Tom Curran.
Mumbai Indians: Rohit Sharma (captain), Suryakumar Yadav, Evin Lewis, Ishan Kishan, Hardik Pandya, Krunal Pandya, Kieron Pollard, Mayank Markande, Mitchell McLenaghan, Mustafizur Rahaman, Jasprit Bumrah, Akila Dananjaya, Ben Cutting, JP Duminy, Rahul Chahar, Sharad Lumba, Adam Milne, Siddhesh Lad, Md Nidheesh, Mohsin Khan, Anukul Roy, Pradeep Sangwan, Tajinder Singh, Aditya Tare, Saurabh Tiwary.
Match starts at 4 PM.
