Today’s Match : Mumbai Indians vs Deccan Chargers (MI vs DC)
A loss against Kings XI Punjab shattered their morale, but now Mumbai Indians will try to get their Indian Premier League (IPL) camopaign back on track when they take on bottom-placed Deccan Chargers at the Wankhede Stadium here on Saturday.
Mumbai Indians have 16 points, the same as Chennai Super Kings but the better net run-rate saw the defending champions taking the top spot after the victory over Delhi Daredevils on Friday.
However, Mumbai have one more match in hand and if they win their last three games, including two at home, they would finish on top of the heap.
The Wankhede offers the perfect stage for the Mumbai Indians. The bouncy track offers free stroke-play to Mumbai batsmen. It is also time for their captain Sachin Tendulkar to lead from the front. His has 371 runs from 11 matches.
Ambati Rayudu (362 runs) and Rohit Sharma (287) also have been very impressive, but Kieron Pollard (78 runs from 11 games) and Andrew Symonds (127 from 9) have been miserable.
The Deccan Chargers? batting has also failed barring skipper Kumar Sangakkara, who has 306 runs from 11 games.
Meanwhile, a storm awaits Kolkata Knight Riders in Bangalore when they face Royal Challengers. Knight Riders will be up against a force called Chris Gayle. In their last encounter, Gayle struck an unbeaten 102 off a mere 55 balls with 10 fours and seven sixers against his former team.
After that century against Knight Riders, Gayle has had scores of 26 (Delhi), 49 (Pune), 107 (Punjab), 44 (Kochi) and 70 (Rajasthan) with the Challengers more than living up to their name.
Knight Riders’ captain Gautam Gambhir?s confidence levels have been boosted after being appointed as the Indian team?s skipper for the ODI series against the West Indies.
But for Gambhir the biggest challenge now will be to stop a rampaging Gayle.
Challengers have 15 points from 11 games while Kolkata has 14 from 11 outings and occupy the third and fourth spots respectively.
