High-flying Mumbai faces Kolkata task in the Friday encounter of the Indian T20 League 2020.
Match Timings: Oct 16, 7:30 PM
Team Preview
After a humiliating defeat to Bangalore on Monday, Kolkata ready for the big huddle in Abu Dhabi to get back on the winning track. Eoin Morgan will lead Kolkata after Karthik's stepping down from the role. Narine was dropped earlier and Banton started the innings with Gill but he had a dull start of the season. In Sharjah, they added extra batsman so it’s expected that Banton will be dropped tonight and Chris Green might be included. McCullum can even try Ferguson to boost their pace and Kuldeep can take the spin role along with Chakravarthy. One more defeat can make things wrong for Kolkata as three other teams are also staying on the same point. The collective effort is required in Kolkata unit to surpass defending champions on Friday. They also need to fix their chasing issues after the poor chasing in last 2-3 defeats.
Meanwhile, Mumbai’s title defence is going pretty strong and they become a compact unit with each game. De Cock and Surya’s batting issues are also solved after back to back half-centuries. Chasing has been a tough task in UAE now-a-days but Mumbai chased down 160 plus target against Delhi to prove their class. Spin might be the only part where they need some fire. Krunal and Chahar both are excellent but they haven’t made any solid impact yet. The conditions are favouring the spinners and in the second half, Mumbai would keen to see these two players performing high. Mumbai have a good record against Kolkata and they also had the last laugh in the previous meeting this season.
Pitch Report
Sheikh Zayed Stadium is a good batting track and it also offers help to spinners. The track gets slightly slower in the second half which makes the chasing tough. Pacers can also get the help from the pitch in the first half an hour. Any score above 160 would be a tough total to chase.
Possible XI
Mumbai
Quinton de Kock (wk), Rohit Sharma (c), Suryakumar Yadav, Ishan Kishan, Hardik Pandya, Kieron Pollard, Krunal Pandya, James Pattinson, Rahul Chahar, Trent Boult, Jasprit Bumrah
Kolkata
Tom Banton/Chris Green, Shubman Gill, Nitish Rana, Eoin Morgan (C), Dinesh Karthik (wk), Andre Russell, Rahul Tripathi, Pat Cummins, Kamlesh Nagarkoti, Prasidh Krishna, Varun Chakravarthy
Key Players
Mumbai
Suryakumar Yadav
Season so far – M: 7, Runs: 233, Avg: 38.83
Trent Boult
Season so far – M: 7, Wickets: 11, Avg: 19.91
Kolkata
Shubman Gill
Season so far – M: 7, Runs: 254, Avg: 42.33
Eoin Morgan
Season so far – M: 7, Runs: 175, Avg: 35
