Kolkata Knight Riders had a wonderful game last time around. The opening duo of Gautam Gambhir and Chris Lynn chased down a score of 183 set by Gujarat Lions comfortably, without losing a wicket, and the match was finished by the 15th over. That was a devastating batting performance, perhaps one of the best in IPL history.
Chris Lynn has already made a name for himself in this IPL and will be considered to be the man to watch. He replaces Robin Uthappa, the long-time partner of Gautam Gambhir.
Mumbai Indians lost the local Maharashtra derby to Rising Pune Supergiant in the first match despite scoring a high first innings total of 184, with all-rounder Hardik Pandya smashing 30 runs from the 20th over – a new IPL record. However, their bowling was found to be wanting, and Pune led by Captain Steven Smith, won handsomely.
This time, Mumbai Indians will be encouraged by the return of T20 superstar Lasith Malinga, who just had a hat-trick against Bangladesh, in a match that his team lost. Malinga is no longer as fast as he used to be, and he looks grossly unfit, but his addition would certainly improve the attack which was able to take just 3 against Rising Pune Supergiants and was not able to defend even a score as high as 184.
Mumbai Indians are not all that strong in the batting department. Ambati Rayudu was taken off the field in the last match because of a groin injury. He is expected to miss out the next 2 weeks of the IPL. Saurabh Tiwary, one player who has been bought for a lot of money by different IPL teams in his career while doing precious little in the way of performance, will replace Rayudu.
Sri Lanka’s rising superstar Asela Gunaratne will be joining the Mumbai squad. He might find it hard to get a game though, as Mumbai have a core group of foreign players who are expected to feature in every game – Jos Butler and Kieron Pollard for example.
Mumbai might give a game to their most capped player Harbhajan Singh in this match. Harbhajan was left out of the last game. He would be considered to be absolutely essential against Kolkata Knight Riders’ Chris Lynn, who is known to be a better player of seam bowling than spin bowling. Bhajji might get a nod ahead of Hardik Pandya.
The Teams
Mumbai Indians: 1 Jos Buttler, 2 Parthiv Patel (wk), 3 Rohit Sharma (capt), 4 Saurabh Tiwary, 5 Nitish Rana, 6 Kieron Pollard, 7 Krunal Pandya/Hardik Pandya, 8 Harbhajan Singh, 9 Jasprit Bumrah, 10 Mitchell McClenaghan/Tim Southee, 11 Lasith Malinga
Kolkata Knight Riders: 1 Gautam Gambhir (capt), 2 Chris Lynn, 3 Robin Uthappa (wk), 4 Manish Pandey, 5 Yusuf Pathan, 6 Suryakumar Yadav, 7 Chris Woakes, 8 Kuldeep Yadav, 9 Sunil Narine, 10 Piyush Chawla/Ankit Rajpoot, 11 Trent Boul
Watch Mumbai Indians take on Kolkata Knight Riders in Mumbai on April 9, 2017 at 2000 local (1430 GMT)!
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