Gujarat Titans will face off against Mumbai Indians on Tuesday
Gujarat Titans will lock horns against Mumbai Indians in the 35th match of the 16th edition of the Indian Premier League on Tuesday at the Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad.
Both teams enter the contest on the back of harrowing defeats in their previous encounters against the Lucknow Super Giants and the Punjab Kings respectively. Naturally, both teams will do their best to walk away with a victory, making the contest mouth-watering for their ardent followers.
What have they done so far?
Despite having won five IPL titles, Mumbai Indians started off the 16th edition of IPL in a fashion that has become particularly theirs, with a defeat. They have now lost their first game of the season for the 11th consecutive time. Mumbai lost their game against Royal Challengers Bangalore by eight wickets and their subsequent game against arch-rivals Chennai Super Kings by seven wickets.
However, the team from Mumbai turned things around against an off-color Delhi Capitals on the last ball of the game. Mumbai defeated DC by six wickets, which gave them enough confidence to make a dent in the points table.
The Rohit Sharma-led side then defeated Kolkata Knight Riders by five wickets and Sunrisers Hyderabad by 14 runs in their subsequent games. Punjab Kings, however, ended MI’s three-match winning streak.
What looked like a low-scoring contest, turned into an over 350-run thriller, as Arjun Tendulkar bowled the joint most expensive spell in IPL, conceding 31 runs in an over. A cameo by Sam Curran and Jitesh Sharma allowed PBKS to score 214 runs at the loss of eight wickets.
MI started the chase in a brilliant manner with Cameroon Green and Suryakumar Yadav scoring 67 runs and 57 runs respectively. However, Arshdeep Singh took the game away in the penultimate over of the game by claiming two crucial wickets, only allowing MI to muster 201 runs.
Rashid Khan took a hattrick against KKR, but it came in a losing cause
On the other hand, GT won the first two games on the trot, but was handed a defeat by KKR, in a match that authors pen novels about. Rinku Singh, who scored 30 runs in an over, allowed KKR to overcome a target of 204 set by GT. The match had everything, a hat-trick by Rashid Khan, it was a 400-run thriller and a batsman scoring five maximums in the dying embers of the game to claim a crucial win.
The defending champions won their subsequent game against PBKS, but lost to last season’s runners-up Rajasthan Royals in the following game. However, they turned things around after defeating LSG in their most recent game, despite putting up a target of just 136 runs.
Head to Head record
The two teams have squared off against each other just once, a contest in which the team from Mumbai won by five runs.
Interestingly, both teams were at different ends of the points table last season. While GT ended up being the table toppers, Mumbai finished last with just 4 victories in 14 games. Incidentally, one of their four victories came against the defending champions.
Key Players
Rashid Khan (Gujarat Titans): The Afghanistan talisman is in the form of his life at the moment. He’s picked 12 wickets in the competition so far and even has a hat-trick to his name, although it came in a losing cause.
He’s currently third in the list, just a wicket behind Arshdeep Singh, who was phenomenal against Mumbai Indians. This is in stark contrast to how the last season ended for him. He took 19 wickets and ended up 8th on the list last season.
Suryakumar Yadav (Mumbai Indians): The last few seasons have been turbulent for the man who scored the most number of runs in the shortest format of the game last year. After a poor show in the ODI format, SKY was heavily criticized for an abysmal run in the shortest format as well.
Suryakumar Yadav scored 57 runs in MI’s game against Punjab Kings
However, he found form again in MI’s game against PBKS. He scored 57 runs, which included three maximums. MI are currently sixth on the points table and will clearly be relying on SKY to turn things around for them in the remaining games of the season.
Predicted XIs
Mumbai Indians: Rohit Sharma ©, Ishan Kishan (wk), Cameron Green, Suryakumar Yadav, Tilak Varma, Tim David, Hrithik Shokeen, Kumar Kartikeya, Jason Behrendorff, Jofra Archer, Piyush Chawla
Gujarat Titans: Shubman Gill, Wriddhiman Saha (wk), Sai Sudharsan, Hardik Pandya ©, David Miller, Rahul Tewatia, Rashid Khan, Alzarri Joseph, Mohammed Shami, Mohit Sharma, Joshua Little
Prediction
While Mumbai is sixth on the table right now, they have five titles to their name, insinuating their pedigree to perform well in high-pressure games. More importantly, Archer’s presence in their bowling attack bolsters their chances of making it to the playoffs.
Gujarat Titans might be just a season old, but look like a more threatening side on paper. It remains to be seen if they can topple a resurgent MI and reclaim their lost glory.
