Rising Pune Supergiant have a new captain – Steven Smith. He takes over from MS Dhoni. This will be the first time that Dhoni will not be playing as a captain in a cricket match. The great man has relinquished captaincy to the Australian cricket superstar, considered to be the best batsman in the world.
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Rising Pune Supergiant have a star studded team. They have the likes of Faf du Plessis, the South African captain, and Ajinkya Rahane, who recently won his first Test as the Indian captain. However, they will be without India’s best bowler R Ashwin. Ashwin gets a well deserved rest for the whole of IPL after having bowled his heart out in the home season for India, playing a role in all Indian Test match wins.
Mitchell Marsh is injured as well, but Pune have signed Imran Tahir, who is the #1 ranked T20 bowler in the world as a replacement.
What about Mumbai Indians? Mumbai Indians are now the most successful team in IPL history, now that Chennai Superkings are no longer around. They have a new coach, Mahela Jayawardene, who replaces the Australian great Ricky Ponting, who coached the Mumbai team to victory in the 2015 season. Mumbai have a good team and fortunately, not many who are on the injury list.
Rohit Sharma leads Mumbai. He is back after a long injury layoff having had a serious thigh surgery. The Sri Lankan T20 specialist Lasith Malinga will be returning after the Sri Lanka-Bangladesh series. Malinga however does not look like the force that he once used to be. He looks grossly overweight and has lost a lot of the pace.
Mumbai Indians would depend heavily on Jos Butler and Kieron Pollard. They are expected to bolster the middle order. The brothers Hardik and Krunal Pandya are the chosen all-rounders in the side. They are both capable of hitting big shots and getting wickets at critical intervals.
The Mumbai Indians bowling in particular looks very good indeed, with the likes of Mitchell McClenaghan, Jasprit Bumrah and Tim Southee leading the attack. Harbhajan is still a part of the side despite being in his late 30s now.
The most talked about player in this match is likely to be Ben Stokes, who is the most expensive player in this season of the IPL. Pune paid big money for him and expect him to deliver. The only real issue with Rising Pune Supergiant is lack of quality Indian bowling talent. They have a medium pace attack with the likes of Jaydev Unadkat and Ashok Dinda. That’s not going to worry anyone!
The Teams
Rising Pune Supergiant: 1 Ajinkya Rahane, 2 Mayank Agarwal, 3 Faf du Plessis, 4 Steven Smith (capt), 5 Ben Stokes, 6 MS Dhoni (wk), 7 Rajat Bhatia, 8 Jaydev Unadkat 9 Ankit Sharma, 10 Ashok Dinda, 11 Adam Zampa
Mumbai Indians: 1 Rohit Sharma (capt), 2 Parthiv Patel (wk), 3 Ambati Rayudu, 4 Jos Buttler, 5 Kieron Pollard, 6 Hardik Pandya, 7 Krunal Pandya, 8 Harbhajan Singh, 9 Mitchell McClenaghan, 10 Jasprit Bumrah, 11 Tim Southee
Watch Rising Pune Supergiant take on Mumbai Indians this April 6, 2017 at 2000 local (1430 GMT).
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