The biggest festival of cricket in India kickstarts this Friday (Apr 09) with defending champions Mumbai Indians taking on Royal Challengers Bangalore in the opening game at the MA Chidambaram Stadium in Chennai. With COVID-19 protocol in place, no team is going to play a single game at their home ground this year. That implies no Wankhede for Mumbai and no Chinnaswamy for RCB this year!
Mumbai Indians:
Under the leadership of Rohit Sharma, Mumbai Indians won five titles so far beginning from IPL 2013 and they are a side to win the trophy yet again this year on paper! They have the experience and the depth in their squad to register their sixth title victory. However, they have a blank spot when it comes to the series opener. It was IPL 2012 when Mumbai Indians won their last IPL tournament opener. And then they lost 8 tournament openers in a row until now! Though MI has the firepower to win the trophy, they would be eager to put a halt to this unwanted stat in the IPL 2021 by defeating RCB.
MI opener Quinton de Kock has directly joined the IPL bubble having been in one back in South Africa for the Pakistan series. He might be available for tonight’s clash against RCB. It was Mumbai Indians’ players who helped India win the recently concluded limited-overs series against England. Ishan Kishan, Suryakumar Yadav and Pandya brothers are the Indian players to watch out for in this match. With the kind of form Ishan is in at the moment, MI might even tempt to promote him as an opener in place of Rohit.
Probable XI: Quinton de Kock (wk), Rohit Sharma (c), Suryakumar Yadav, Ishan Kishan, Hardik Pandya, Kieron Pollard, Krunal Pandya, Piyush Chawla, Rahul Chahar, Trent Boult, Jasprit Bumrah
Royal Challengers Bangalore:
In search of their maiden title victory, RCB has really broken their bank to buy all-rounders Kyle Jamieson and Glenn Maxwell. It would be interesting to see how the franchise is going to use them in the upcoming season. I still feel leaving out Chris Morris was a mistake made by the RCB franchise. On the other hand, RCB’s fate in any match in the recent past was depended on the form of Virat Kohli, AB de Villiers and Yuzvendra Chahal. This trio would still play a prominent role in tonight’s game against MI.
It may not be as long as MI’s losing streak but Royal Challengers too had lost their opening game in the last three seasons! This might be the best chance for RCB to put an end to it considering MI’s struggles in the tournament opener or MI might use it to their strength. Devdutt Padikkal recovered from COVID-19 and has joined the squad. According to their head coach Simon Katich, he started training on Wednesday and would likely to open the innings. Besides Chahal, RCB boasts a relatively inexperienced bowling attack and that would make or break the match for them in this match!
Despite the legacy Kohli and AB carry in this line-up, RCB still has the middle-order and death bowling worries. They just hope Dan Christian might be the answer for both these issues in the upcoming season including tonight’s game against Mumbai Indians!
Probable XI: Devdutt Padikkal, Virat Kohli (c), Glenn Maxwell, AB de Villiers (wk), Mohammad Azharuddin, Daniel Christian, Washington Sundar, Kyle Jamieson, Navdeep Saini, Mohammad Siraj, Yuzvendra Chahal.
What happened in IPL 2020:
In the 2 games played against each other in IPL 2020, MI and RCB shared a match apiece. Ishan Kishan who was out on 99 blamed himself for not taking his side to a victory in the first match that RCB won in the Super Over. On the other hand, MI won the second match courtesy of superb innings from Suryakumar Yadav. The second match was remembered more for the duel between then uncapped Suryakumar and RCB captain Virat Kohli!
Match prediction:
Though MI has the better line-up, they had the history of losing tournament openers in the last eight seasons! On the other hand, RCB too lost their first match of the tournament since IPL. Considering the past performances and squad depth, it would be a 60:40 in favor of Mumbai Indians to win this game!
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