After two successive losses, Mumbai Indians (MI) would like to turn it around when they face Rajasthan Royals (RR) in an afternoon encounter of the Indian Premier League (IPL) at the Arun Jaitley Stadium on Thursday.
MI were thrashed by Punjab Kings by nine wickets. Prior to that, they lost to Delhi Capitals by six wickets.
RR, on the other hand, have also been inconsistent this season. Like MI, they have won just two out of their five games. But they are coming off a six-wicket win over Kolkata Knight Riders.
RR have very limited overseas options to fall back on. A couple of their overseas players, Jofra Archer and Ben Stokes, left the shores due to injury. Liam Livingstone left due to bio-bubble fatigue while Andrew Tye departed due to fear of getting locked out of Australia.
The Rajasthan franchise is now left with only four foreign players — David Miller, Chris Morris, Mustafizur Rahman and Jos Buttler.
Unlike RR, MI have a lot of overseas players to pick from. However, their problem has been their middle-order which struggled to get going on a spin-friendly pitch at the MA Chidambaram Stadium in Chennai. Delhi Capitals (DC), whose form has tapered off a bit in recent times, will take on Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) in an Indian Premier League (IPL) match here at the Narendra Modi Stadium on Thursday.
DC lost their previous match to Royal Challengers Bangalore by just one run on Tuesday night and they barely managed to beat SunRisers Hyderabad in the Super Over on Sunday night.
The Kolkata franchise, which has been inconsistent throughout the tournament, managed to return to winning ways beating Punjab Kings by five wickets. Prior to that, KKR had lost four matches in a row.
So far, KKR has won just two out of six matches. Unlike them, DC have won four out of six matches in the IPL so far.
DC’s strength is batting and not just bowling. Even as Prithvi Shaw, Shikhar Dhawan and Steve Smith failed to get going in the last match against RCB, middle-order batsman Shimron Hetmyer showed that one can never write off DC.