What

The Mumbai Indians will be eyeing their first points on the board when they take on the Royal Challengers Bangalore in Match 16 of Pepsi IPL 2015. The two teams occupy the bottom two places in the standings and will be keen to make a climb up the ladder.

RCB have played the fewest matches of all teams at this stage – two – and have two points to show from their win against the Kolkata Knight Riders. They lost their first home match of the season to Sunrisers Hyderabad despite posting 166 runs on the board and will need to address the problems in the bowling department. There is enough firepower in the batting department and one can bank on one of the big guns to fire every time, but the quick bowlers have come in for plenty of stick – leaking runs at 9.72 runs per over and that is an area that calls for an immediate fix. Mitchell Starc, the Player of the World Cup 2015, is expected to join the team and his addition could be huge boost to the RCB bowling lineup.

Mumbai Indians have problems galore. From problems with the opening pair, to batting well in the first six overs, to some of the tactics used, MI need to revisit the drawing board to get things in order. Areas to fix include: getting their batting order right, for the opening pair to get runs (the team has had opening partnerships of 8, 0, 27 & 1) and batting well in the first six overs (scores of 37-3, 17-3, 31-1 & 31-3 in the first six overs). The positives the team could look at are: the form of Kieron Pollard and Rohit Sharma, posting a century partnership in three of their four matches, and posting totals of 168-3, 159-7, 164-5 and 183-7 despite the poor starts.

When

19 April 2015, 8p.m. IST

Where

M Chinnaswamy Stadium, Bengaluru

The Protagonists

No batsman has top-scored for the Royal Challengers Bangalore more than Chris Gayle; off the 53 occasions he has batted in the RCB jersey, Gayle has finished innings top-scorer on 25 occasions. No batsman knows the T20 format better than the Jamaican, who holds the record for the most runs, most hundreds and most sixes not.

In the Mumbai Indians ranks, one doesn’t have to look beyond captain Rohit Sharma. The 27-year old has had a mixed tournament; he scored an unbeaten 98 in the season opener, which was followed by two Ducks. In his most recent outing against the Chennai Super Kings, he came good once again with a classic innings of 50. MI have had problems aplenty and it is therefore imperative that the captain bats in the top three and gives himself the chance to bat as many deliveries as possible.

Contests to look-forward to

Chris Gayle has never been dismissed by Lasith Malinga so far in the IPL. The Mumbai Indians’ spearhead – the top wicket-taker in the IPL – will be looking to set that record straight come Sunday.

Batsmen dismissed by Harbhajan Singh so far in Pepsi IPL 2015: Manish Pandey, Virender Sehwag, Murali Vijay, Brendon McCullum and Dwayne Smith. Which of Chris Gayle, Virat Kohli or AB de Villiers will he add to that list?

Previous Meetings

The head-to-head in IPL matches between the Royal Challengers Bangalore and Mumbai Indians reads 7 wins to RCB and 8 wins to MI.

Interestingly, MI have the best record against RCB among all the visiting teams in IPL matches at Bengaluru; they have won 4 off their 5 matches against RCB at the M Chinnaswamy Stadium.

Trivia

Royal Challengers Bangalore have now won only one of their last five matches at the M Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bengaluru. In the nine matches preceding that, they were victorious in eight.

The M Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bengaluru, the world’s first solar-powered cricket stadium, has played host to the most IPL matches – 45.

In his last outing at the M Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bengaluru – on 2 November 2013, Rohit Sharma scored 209 in an ODI against Australia.

The Mumbai Indians have used as many as 17 different players in their four matches so far.

Lasith Malinga has gone wicket-less in six of the 11 IPL matches he bowled in against the Royal Challengers Bangalore.

What Next

Royal Challengers Bangalore’s next scheduled outing is a home fixture against the Chennai Super Kings on April 22. Mumbai Indians meanwhile head to the National Capital Delhi on April 23 for their away fixture against the Delhi Daredevils.