Mumbai Indians, currently second behind Chennai Super Kings with 16 points, would be keen to seal its place in the play-offs with a victory over the bottom-placed Deccan Chargers at the Wankhede Stadium here on Saturday.
Apart from the Chargers encounter, Mumbai also has a home match against Rajasthan Royals and an away game against Kolkata Knight Riders.
After a three-match winning streak at home, Mumbai lost the momentum by losing to Kings XI Punjab at Mohali.
It has been dismissed for under 100 twice during this year's IPL, suggesting that its batsmen have not been in control always.
Search still on
On paper, Mumbai has a strong batting line-up with Sachin Tendulkar, Ambati Rayudu, Rohit Sharma, Andrew Symonds and Kieron Pollard in its ranks.
However, it is still searching for a partner to Tendulkar.
The Tendulkar-Sanath Jayasuriya and Tendulkar-Shikhar Dhawan combinations performed reasonably well in the previous editions, but neither Davy Jacobs (out of the tournament because of a finger injury) nor James Franklin, Rajagopal Satish and Aiden Blizzard have provided encouragement to the Mumbai think-tank. Moreover, Satish, a fine fielder, has been replaced by T. Suman.
It looks as though Mumbai would bank on Blizzard for the remaining part of the league phase.
Mumbai's spin department, too, has not been consistent, and it would be interesting to see if it uses the opportunity to bring in left-arm spinner Raymond Price against Chargers.
A win against Chargers would improve Mumbai's chances of finishing among the top two. It would fancy its chances since it's playing at Wankhede.
On its part, Chargers would like to play spoilsport.
It does have the resources with bowlers Dale Steyn, Ishant Sharma and Amit Mishra, and competent batsmen, including former Mumbai batsmen Jean-Paul Duminy and Dhawan, in its line-up.
