Series: Indian Premier League, 2016 Venue: Eden Gardens, Kolkata Date & Time: Apr 13, 08:00 PM LOCAL
MI will bank on good Eden vibes
Rohit Sharma will hope that the Mumbai Indians' strong batting line-up will live
up to its reputation against Knight Riders on his and MI's favourite ground.
With Narine available, KKR will be in a fix whether to disturb the winning combo
Mumbai Indians’ good vibes with Eden Gardens will be
bothering host Kolkata Knight Riders as the reigning champion takes on
the former title-holder in an interesting IPL-9 match here on Wednesday.
Mumbai
Indians has won both its crowns at the Eden and its captain Rohit
Sharma has an even sweeter relationship with the ground having scored a
century in all formats of the game.
The herculean
264 against Sri Lanka in November 2014, that shattered the world record
in the ODIs, is still fresh in the minds of the crowds.
In
the IPL, his 109 (2012) and unbeaten 98 (2015) have made him one of the
best performers on this ground. All these factors will motivate Mumbai
Indians to go for its first win after a disheartening nine-wicket loss
against debutant Rising Pune Supergiants in the opening match of this
season.
If the records are discounted, then KKR would
be drawing inspiration from the thumping start it had against Delhi
Daredevils two nights ago.
Captain Gautam Gambhir,
who has not played international T20 for quite some time, quietened the
doubters with an unbeaten 38 to see his team past Daredevils.
KKR,
for the last few seasons, has emerged a consistent performer at home.
But in a closely-strung league set-up, the starts could be misleading as
was the case last year where Knight Riders missed the play-offs despite
being on top of the standings after 12 games.
On the
other hand, Mumbai Indians is known to be a slow starter. But, if the
previous two seasons are any indication, Rohit’s men are cut out for
long tournaments which allow room for recovery.
Gambhir
may well think that KKR’s batting wasn’t tested in its first game but
the bowling was quite incisive even in the absence of the West Indian
off-spinner Sunil Narine, who had to fly home to perform his father’s
last rites.
With Brad Hogg and Piyush Chawla
returning figures of three for 19 and two for 21, Gambhir will be in a
fix whether to change the winning combination in order to accommodate
Narine.
The only one to perform for Mumbai Indians
in the first match — off-spinner Harbhajan Singh — will again have a lot
to do on a wicket he had some memorable performances. The visitors will
be hoping that their strong batting line-up — consisting of Rohit,
Lendl Simmons, Jos Buttler and Kieron Pollard — comes out firing, to put
the team on the winning track.
Teams:
Mumbai Indians
(From): Rohit Sharma(c), Lendl Simmons, Jos Buttler(w), Ambati Rayudu,
Kieron Pollard, Hardik Pandya, Shreyas Gopal, Harbhajan Singh, Vinay
Kumar, Mitchell McClenaghan, Jasprit Bumrah, Parthiv Patel, Tim Southee,
Corey Anderson, Akshay Wakhare, Marchant de Lange, Siddhesh Lad, Unmukt
Chand, Krunal Pandya, Suchith, Nitish Rana, Jitesh Sharma, Deepak
Punia, Nathu Singh, Kishore Kamath
Kolkata Knight Riders
(From): Gautam Gambhir(c), Robin Uthappa(w), Manish Pandey, Colin
Munro, Yusuf Pathan, Suryakumar Yadav, Andre Russell, John Hastings,
Piyush Chawla, Umesh Yadav, Brad Hogg, Jaydev Unadkat, Chris Lynn, Sunil
Narine, Sheldon Jackson, Rajagopal Sathish, Manan Sharma, Jason Holder,
Morne Morkel, Shakib Al Hasan, Kuldeep Yadav, Ankit Rajpoot
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