Mumbai and Bangalore face each other to seal the playoffs and take them to a top-two finish in Wednesday encounter in Indian T20 League 2020.
Match Timings: Oct 28, 7:30 PM
Team Preview
The second half of the season has been a roller coaster ride of comebacks. The bottom sides are going ahead in the league and they are upsetting top leaders to give a thrilling act to the playoff script. Mumbai and Bangalore set a date after a thrilling super-over finish in the opening week last month and their defeats to Rajasthan and Chennai respectively, hold their playoff assurance.
Pandya’s 21-balls 60 was overshadowed by a fine hundred from Ben Stokes. Rohit Sharma’s injury put concerns and Pollard have a big responsibility to guide his team to a winning streak. The bowling unit was mediocre in Abu Dhabi and they find themselves in top two with 14 points. Mumbai’s campaign for this season has been exceptionally great and the last defeat showed their worst performances. They have been consistent in all departments and Pollard is the finest captain who had led Trinabgo to 4th Caribbean title this season with an unbeaten run. It was his first defeat as captain after 15 consecutive wins in all competitions. Mumbai would keen to take two points from this game to avoid any blunder in the final half as the bottom sides are going strong.
Meanwhile, Bangalore suffered a shocking defeat against bottom topper Chennai who chased down their target with losing just two wickets. Only Virat and ABD showed some intent in batting and their bowling unit was also exposed who failed to draw any attention in middle-overs. On a slow surface, they could have pulled this defend. The equation is also clear for Virat Kohli as they have to win their remaining matches if they want to avoid elimination on November 06. Udana might be recalled in place of Moeen Ali. Finch’s form is an issue but Padikkal’s support is not giving much pressure to Kohli.
Pitch Report
Abu Dhabi’s surface is different from Sharjah and Dubai. We have rarely seen the dryness in night matches and it’s a good friendly wicket. The surface has slight help to pacers in the first half. It’s a 170-180 scoring ground.
Possible XI
Mumbai
Quinton de Kock (wk), Ishan Kishan, Suryakumar Yadav, Saurabh Tiwary, Hardik Pandya, Kieron Pollard (c), Krunal Pandya, James Pattinson, Rahul Chahar, Trent Boult, Jasprit Bumrah
Bangalore
Devdutt Padikkal, Aaron Finch, Virat Kohli (c), AB de Villiers (wk), Moeen Ali/Isru Udana, Gurkeerat Singh Mann, Chris Morris, Washington Sundar, Navdeep Saini, Mohammed Siraj, Yuzvendra Chahal
Key Players
Mumbai
Quinton de Kock
This Season – M: 11, Runs: 374, Avg: 41.55
Jasprit Bumrah
This Season – M: 11, Wickets: 17, Avg: 19.47
Bangalore
Virat Kohli
This Season – M: 11, Runs: 415, Avg: 59.28
Yuzvendra Chahal
This Season – M: 11, Wickets: 16, Avg: 18.50
