Edgy Mumbai face jittery RCB

MUMBAI: Languishing at the bottom of the points table, defending champions Mumbai Indians (MI) will hope for a turnaround in fortunes on Tuesday against Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB), having lost all their close encounters so far.

Desperate to end their losing streak, the Rohit Sharma-led Mumbai Indians will take on Virat Kohli’s batting-heavy RCB at their home ground in Wankhede Stadium.

The IPL’S infamous slow-starters Mumbai Indians were finally able to put an end to their batting blues when they hammered 194/7 against Delhi Daredevils in their last match. But a sublime fifty from Jason Roy dashed Mumbai’s hopes of a win last weekend.

The move to send local boy Suryakumar Yadav at the top worked wonders as he added 102 for the first wicket with Evin Lewis.

With his current form, Suryakumar, who has scores of 43, 28 and 53 makes an ideal opening pair with Lewis. But Mumbai would be concerned with the form of their captain Rohit, who has failed to convert starts.

Mayank Markande’s exploits have breathed fresh life into Mumbai Indians’ bowling, which has been bolstered by the addition of New Zealand pacer Adam Milne.

Mustafizur Rahman’s bowling has also been encouraging for three-time IPL winners.

But Mumbai’s real troubles lie in their inability to pull off favourable results in crunch situations, as it has been thrice on the trot that they failed in this series — losing by one wicket once and on the last ball twice.

Each of their last-over bets conceded more than at least 10 runs in final overs and this remains a concern for Mumbai.

Although the sixth-placed RCB’S batting looks as threatening as it could get but so far with two defeats and one win, the Kohli-led team has not found its rhythm either.

Bludgeoned by RR batsman Sanju Samson’s 92* on Sunday, RCB’S famed batting line-up consisting Kohli, AB de Villiers, Brendon Mccullum and Quinton de Kock could not deliver the goods at Bengaluru.