Mumbai Indians have done it again – waste away the start of the IPL, contrive to lose almost all the matches in the first month of the IPL, and suddenly, raise their game and start winning. The amazing thing about the Mumbai Indians is that they have started winning and not stopped even once. While the forms of other teams in the IPL have waxed and waned, Mumbai Indians march on, and they are now in the semi-finals, taking on the mighty Chennai Super Kings.
The Chennai Super Kings have a record of winning 80% of their matches against the Mumbai Indians in the post-league stages of the IPL. But while the CSK side looks very good, they have never quite been unbeatable, otherwise they would have won many more IPLs. However experience counts for a lot in the IPL and the Chennai team have it.
Faf du Plessis feels his team, the Chennai Super Kings are at a happy place right now after having finished on top of the points table. He says: “It’s different because we always scrape through to the playoffs but we have always been consistent. Now we have had an easier road in and there is a huge difference.”
Rohit Sharma, the Mumbai Indians skipper is excited as well. Rohit says, “We have finished one tournament and enter into a fresh tournament now. If we play to our potential this is what we can do.”
Will Mumbai Indians home advantage as they play at home? Home advantage does not really count for much for the Mumbai Indians as they have lost 4 out of 7 matches played in Mumbai. But at least, they won their last game here, against Sunrisers Hyderabad, and won it quite easily.
For CSK, they face the prospect of being without their #1 batsman, Brendon McCullum, who has to leave for England to lead New Zealand in the Test series. Michael Hussey, who has retired from international cricket will replace McCullum, but he is clearly not the best possible replacement as he has been out of the game for quite a long while now.
For Mumbai Indians, they have been joined by England star Alex Hales, but he is unlikely to feature for them. Lendl Simmons has been a start performer for his side and will certainly retain his spot at the top of the order.
An exciting match is in prospect. We expect Mumbai Indians to win this one as Chennai Super Kings will be handicapped by the loss of Brendon McCullum.
The Teams
Mumbai Indians: 1 Lendl Simmons 2 Parthiv Patel (wk) 3 Rohit Sharma (capt) 4 Ambati Rayudu 5 Kieron Pollard 6 Hardik Pandya 7 Harbhajan Singh 8 J Suchith 9 Mitchell McClenaghan 10 Vinay Kumar 10 Lasith Malinga
Chennai Super Kings: 1 Dwayne Smith 2 Michael Hussey 3 Suresh Raina 4 Faf du Plessis 5 MS Dhoni (capt & wk) 6 Pawan Negi 7 Dwayne Bravo 8 Ravindra Jadeja 9 R Ashwin 10 Ashish Nehra 11 Mohit Sharma/Ishwar Pandey
Match Conditions
The Wankhade stadium has always been a batsman friendly track and tomorrow’s match should see more of the same. We expect both teams to score in the excess of 180. It remains to be seen who scores more as both teams have amazing batting line-ups.
Watch Mumbai Indians take on Chennai Super Kings in the first Semi-Final of IPL 2015 at 8:00 PM on Tuesday, live on Sony Six!
