Sunrisers Hyderabad were the best team in the IPL 2016. They are the reigning IPL champions and have a good chance of retaining their old on the competition in IPL 2017 as well.
The Sunrisers have so far won both of their matches, beating Gujarat Lions by nine wickets, and RCB by 35 runs. They beat Mumbai Indians on the two occasions they played them last season and would want to repeat the performance in this season as well.
Mumbai Indians are notorious for being slow starters in the IPL. They began this season by losing to Rising Pune Supergiant by 7 wickets, but managed to salvage the situation by beating Kolkatta Knight Riders by four wickets.
This time, the Sunrisers could make a change to their settled line-up. Bangladesh fast bowler Mustafizur Rahman has joined the team and could play his first match. Fizz, as he is called, will only be available for 2 or 3 games in this edition of the IPL because of national duty with Bangladesh.
Mustafizur in the bowling line-up, which also consists of Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Rashid Khan and Ashish Nehra gives the Sunrisers teams best bowling attack in this season of the IPL. If only Mustafizur could play the entire tournament for them, they would have certainly looked unbeatable.
Mumbai are a settled team as well and have no serious injury concerns except for Ambati Rayudu who is likely to miss 10 days of the IPL because of a serious groin strain suffered in the first game against Pune. Mahela Jayawardene, the head coach of the Mumbai side has said that the team would not suffer because of Rayadu’s absence and has adequate replacements.
For Mumbai, Sri Lankan medium pacerr Lasith Malinga played a critical role in their win against Kolkata Knight Riders last Sunday. Malinga is no longer as fast as he used to be, but he knows every trick in the trade and his experience can be valuable at this level.
Mumbai have unearthed a match winner in young left-hander Nitish Rana who hit 50 off 29 balls to lead their run chase of 179.
Hardik Pandya, the all-rounder, has not done anything at all with the ball, but he has been exceptional with the bat, hitting a couple of explosive knocks towards the end of the innings in the two matches he has played. His 29 not out off 11 balls won Mumbai the game against KKR.
The Teams
Mumbai Indians: 1 Jos Buttler, 2 Parthiv Patel (wk), 3 Rohit Sharma (capt), 4 Nitish Rana, 5 Kieron Pollard, 6 Krunal Pandya 7 Hardik Pandya, 8 Harbhajan Singh, 9 Jasprit Bumrah, 10 Mitchell McClenaghan, 11 Lasith Malinga
Sunrisers Hyderabad: 1 David Warner (capt), 2 Shikhar Dhawan, 3 Moises Henriques, 4 Yuvraj Singh, 5 Deepak Hooda, 6 Naman Ojha (wk), 7 Bipul Sharma/Vijay Shankar, 8 Rashid Khan, 9 Bhuvneshwar Kumar, 10 Ashish Nehra, 11 Mustafizur Rahman
Watch Mumbai Indians take on Sunrisers Hyderabad in Mumbai on April 12, 2017 at 2000 local (1430 GMT).
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