Things have gone awry for Mumbai Indians in the ongoing Pepsi-IPL-8. Generally listless and losing five of the six first-half matches, the former champion is in doldrums. Skipper Rohit Sharma and head coach Ricky Ponting addressed their first press conference with panache and hope before flying for the opening ceremony; but after being on the road for 15 days, they must be disappointed men now. After a seven wicket loss against KKR, the downward spiral continued suffering defeats against Kings XI Punjab, Rajasthan Royals and Chennai Super Kings before the likes of Lendl Simmons, Unmukt Chand, Rohit Sharma and Harbhajan Singh starred in the team’s first win against Royal Challengers, Bangalore at the M. Chinnaswamy Stadium.
The 18-run- win against the Virat Kohli-led side was a happy interlude from a losing streak, but MI once again was below par against Delhi Daredevils at the Kotla on Thursday.
Beaten soundly by Mumbai boy Shreyas Iyer and Jean Paul Duminy, MI will try to pick up the pieces at its home ground against Sunrisers Hyderabad which appeared to have flattered to deceive (losing to Rajasthan Royals and Delhi Daredevils) after its handsome win against RCB. But thanks to the top order bombardment by David Warner and Shikhar Dhawan, the Sunrisers scored a psychological victory against KKR in the rain-affected match at Visakhapatnam and saved its reputation before the showdown against MI.
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In spite of facing setbacks like not getting its bowling unit a formidable seamer like Josh Hazlewood and losing Aaron Finch and Corey Anderson to injuries, MI has a number of match winners, but none, including skipper Sharma, have fired to sustain a high consistency index. and in the bowling department Harbhajan Singh has been in exceptional rhythm the rest including Lasith Malinga have looked pedestrian.
MI must win the last league match of the first phase in order to keep the players genuinely interested in the second half of the tournament. The Sunrisers depend too much on Warner and Dhawan, but it has a handful of competent batsman like Eon Morgan, Naman Ojha, Kane Williamson, K. L.Rahul and Ravi Bopara. It would be interesting to see the bowling group Warner would use on a pitch that would support the skills of seamers and spinners alike. Dale Steyn turned up against KKR and the Daredevils and he should be Warner’s first choice against MI.
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The squads:
Mumbai Indians: Rohit Sharma (captain), Ambati Rayudu, Abhimanyu Mithun, Aditya Tare, Parthiv Patel, Kieron Pollard, Corey Anderson, Lasith Malinga, Harbhajan Singh, Jasprit Bumrah, Marchant de Lange, Pawan Suyal, Shreyas Gopal, Lendl Simmons, Pragyan Ojha, Mitchell McClenaghan, Aiden Blizzard, Akshay Wakhare, Nitish Rana, Sidhesh Lad, Hardik Pandya, Jagadeesha Suchith, Unmukt Chand and R Vinay Kumar.
Sunrisers Hyderabad: David Warner (captain), Shikhar Dhawan, Dale Steyn, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Karn Sharma, Ishant Sharma, Moises Henriques, KL Rahul, Parveez Rasool, Naman Ojha, Ashish Reddy, Ricky Bhui, Chama Milind, Eoin Morgan, Kane Williamson, Ravi Bopara, Praveen Kumar, Trent Boult, Hanuma Vihari, Prasanth Padmanabha, Siddarth Kaul, Bipul Sharma.