It will be a clash between two teams - Sunrisers Hyderabad and Mumbai Indians - which have rediscovered their winning ways after early disappointments in the IPL at the Rajiv Gandhi Stadium here on Tuesday night.
In a way, it can also be a contest between two equals when these former champions, with four points each from four games with two losses, would look to sustain the momentum gained by their recent successes.
Rohit Sharma-led Mumbai will be better off chasing a target than setting one given the weak links in its’ bowling armoury.
Arjun Tendulkar, son of the great Sachin Tendulkar, did impress on his debut against Kolkata Knight Riders the other night and should only be looking to keep improving to help the team’s cause.
Pacer Riley Meredith, left-arm pacer Duan Jansen and veteran leggie Piyush Chawla are expected to put the brakes against the home team line-up, which saw the gifted Englishman Harry Brook score a magnificent century against Kolkata at Eden Gardens.
The biggest positive for Mumbai from its last game win against Kolkata was the way opener and southpaw Ishan Kishan slammed a breezy half-century, and even Surya Kumar Yadav too, seemed to have put behind the batting horrors of the previous games with a decent knock.
It will be a special moment for sure when the local boy and the fast-improving Tilak Varma dons the Mumbai colours in front of his ‘home crowd’ to make another statement of his growing stature.
No doubt, captain Rohit Sharma should also come up with a big score to make things easy for his team at one of his favourite venues.
On the other hand, the Sunrisers should be pleased to see captain Aiden Markram come back with a brilliant half-century in the previous game.
But again, it is the bowling attack spearheaded by swing merchant Bhuvneshwar Kumar and Marcon Jansen are backed by left-arm pacer T. Natarajan, who was no doubt expensive against Kolkata in the last match, and fiery Umran Malik who holds the key.
The team has the liberty of looking up to leggie Mayank Markande and off-spinning all-rounder Washington Sundar to check the runs-flow in the middle-overs if the situation demands.
By all means, it should be an exciting contest on a pitch which looks like a perfect T-20 wicket.
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