The last time Mumbai Indians played at home, the election fever in the island city was at its peak, India’s World Cup squad was at the centre of every Indian Premier League-related discussion and David Warner and Jonny Bairstow were pummelling virtually every bowling attack for Sunrisers Hyderabad.
Cut to Wednesday, the eve of the penultimate league game for both the teams, and despite the other discussions having relatively died down, Warner and Bairstow, especially the former, continued to be the talk of the Wankhede Stadium.
It’s been a week since Bairstow flew back to England for the World Cup preparations and barely a couple of days since Warner had to cut short his IPL dream run and join his Aussie mates for the training camp. With nine fifty-plus scores, including a hundred, in his 12 innings for SRH, so huge has Warner’s impact been on the Sunrisers’ campaign that his absence for the last two crunch games will be the biggest challenge for Kane Williamson and Co to deal with.
SRH bowlers have performed well in patches and need to get their act together against MI’s strong batting line-up. File
Tom Moody, the SRH head coach, preferred to look at the positive side despite underlining Warner’s remarkable achievement. “We were faced with a similar situation last year. We were without David Warner and we played the final,” Moody said on Wednesday. “… as much as we miss David, it gives an opportunity as a side to play slightly differently with different personnel.”
While the Sunrisers’ think-tank will be in a quandary over filling Warner’s void for virtually a must-win game, the Mumbai Indians camp isn’t complaining at all.
“As an opponent, we feel good about it that he (Warner) is not there. One less guy who has been in form to not to deal with, but am sure they have in their armoury a lot of world-class talent to back it up,” said all rounder-Kieron Pollard. “Guptill has done fantastically well at the international scene. Yes, they have lost Warner but we are not taking them lightly.”
In Martin Guptill, Sunrisers have a like-for-like replacement for Warner. But considering the bounce that the Wankhede surface offers, if SRH is tempted to field lanky pacer Billy Stanlake, then captain Williamson will have to walk in with Wriddhiman Saha at the top of the order.
While SRH will be eager to pip MI and go into the last game in a relatively comfortable position, Rohit Sharma’s troupe will be desperate to end the league stage with twin wins at home and ensure a top-two position.
The Teams (From):
Sunrisers Hyderabad: Kane Williamson (captain), Basil Thampi, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Deepak Hooda, Manish Pandey, T Natarajan, Ricky Bhui, Sandeep Sharma, Siddarth Kaul, Shreevats Goswami, Khaleel Ahmed, Yusuf Pathan, Billy Stanlake, Rashid Khan, Mohammad Nabi, Shakib Al Hasan, Wriddhiman Saha, Martin Guptill, Vijay Shankar, Abhishek Sharma, Shahbaz Nadeem.
Mumbai Indians: Rohit Sharma (captain), Quinton de Kock (wk), Suryakumar Yadav, Yuvraj Singh, Kieron Pollard, Hardik Pandya, Krunal Pandya, Mitchell McClenaghan, Mayank Markande, Rahul Chahar, Jasprit Bumrah, Anmolpreet Singh, Siddhesh Lad, Ankul Roy, Evin Lewis, Pankaj Jaiswal, Ben Cutting, Ishan Kishan, Aditya Tare, Rasikh Salam, Barinder Sran, Jayant Yadav, Beuran Hendricks.
Match starts 8pm.
