What

The Mumbai Indians and Kings XI Punjab will feature in the first return fixture of VIVO IPL 2019. The two teams met in Mohaliearlier in Match 9; Kings XI Punjab prevailed in that contest after they chased down 177 quite convincingly.

Both teams are coming of wins against Sunrisers Hyderabad in their respective previous matches. The debutant Alzarri Joseph starred in the Mumbai Indians’ 40-run win over Sunrisers Hyderabad; the speedster from the West Indies returned record-making figures of 6 for 12 to help dismiss SRH for their lowest-ever total.Then, on Monday night, Kings XI Punjab restricted SRH to 150-4 and chased down the runs in the last over.

Mumbai Indians have a problem at the top ; there’s plenty of ability in their top three – comprising Quinton de Kock, Rohit Sharma and Suryakumar Yadav, but none of those three players have been able to motor along and make big scores. In 15 combined innings between the three of them, MI has realised only two half-centuries – which are poor returns. The middle-order – comprising the two Pandya brothers and Kieron Pollard have generally fired in the end overs, taking MI to a respectable total. However, one cannot expect consistency from those batting in the lower middle-order – given they do not have the time to assess conditions and have to get going from ball one.

KXIP have been very smart in their selections and in their strategies, and their players are responding to their roles too. The one area that KXIP need to work on is timing their acceleration with the bat. Despite having wickets in hand, and two well-set batsmen at the crease, they failed to chase down 160 against the Chennai Super Kings, and then almost made hash of       their chase of 150 against the Sunrisers.

It is unlikely both will tinker with their line-up. Lasith Malinga is expected to be unavailable for this clash too, and therefore the Mumbai Indians could retain the same bowling attack that did the job in Hyderabad. On the batting front, Ishan Kishan got a much-awaited call-up in the previous match and one can expect he will get a decent run in the middle order.

When

10 April 2019, 8pm IST

Where

Wankhede Stadium, Mumbai

Previous Match XIs:

Mumbai Indians:Quinton de Kock. Rohit Sharma. Suryakumar Yadav, Ishan Kishan, Krunal Pandya, Kieron Pollard, Hardik Pandya, Rahul Chahar, Alzarri Joseph, Jasprit Bumrah, Jason Behrendorff.

Kings XI Punjab:Chris Gayle, KL Rahul, Mayank Agarwal, Mandeep Singh, David Miller, Sam Curran, Sarfaraz Khan, R Ashwin, Mujeeb ur Rahman, Ankit Rajpoot, Mohammed Shami.

Protagonists

If the Mumbai Indians hope to go the distances, their top three need to do better than they’ve fared so far this season. Quinton de Kock, Rohit Sharma and Suryakumar Yadav are MI’s top three run-getters, but one hasn’t seen a match-winning knock from one of them. MI play three back-to-back games at home – and given the generally good tracks one comes across at the Wankhede Stadium this is the time for them to start piling on the runs.

KL Rahul’s return to form must augur well for KXIP; the opening batsman has the game to hold one end and bat deep, but can also plunder bowling attacks – like he did last season. Among others, Chris Gayle is a danger every time he walks out to bat, while Mayank Agarwal appears to becoming a better batsman with every visit to the crease.

Head to Head in Indian Premier League

Overall: Matches – 23,Mumbai Indians – 12, Kings XI Punjab –11.

At the Wankhede Stadium: Matches – 8, Mumbai Indians – 4, Kings XI Punjab – 4.

Trivia

The Mumbai Indians seem to prefer batting first; they’ve won six of the last 8 matches in which they’ve batted first.

The one glaring deficiency in the Mumbai Indians line-up is the sting in their spin bowling attack; so far this season, they have only realised 5 wickets from their spinners – the fewest among all teams.