Mumbai face tough test from Sunrisers
The variety in Sunrisers Hyderabad’s bowling attack will pose a few tricky questions for Mumbai Indians, when the two teams square off here on Thursday.
The two teams met with contrasting fortunes in their opening games. While Sunrisers hardly broke sweat during their emphatic nine-wicket victory over Rajasthan Royals, Mumbai Indians lost a humdinger to CSK in the tournament opener.
Sunrisers are believed to have the most diverse bowling attack in the competition. They have Bhuvneshwar Kumar with his superb skill-sets of seam and swing, Billy Stanlake for raw pace and Siddarth Kaul to hit the deck. Add to it Rashid Khan’s fast leg-breaks and googlies are still a mystery for most batsmen while Shakib Al Hasan with his orthodox left-arm spin is miserly on most days.
Mumbai Indians on the otherhand is filled with a galaxy of stars and are often known to be slow starters in a marathon tournament. Skipper Rohit Sharma would be expecting a better effort from his batsmen as 165 on a good batting track wasn’t par for the course.
Evin Lewis, who has two T20 hundreds against India, skipper himself and the explosive Kieron Mumbai Indians Total matches Sunrisers Hyderabad
HYDERABAD:
Rohit Sharma needs just one more fifty to became the third Indian after Gautam Gambhir (53 fifties) and Virat Kohli (52 fifties) to hit 50 or more fifties in Twenty-20 cricket.
Shakib Al Hasan needs just 20 runs to become the second Bangaldeshi after Tamim Iqbal and 68th batsman overall to score 4000 runs in Twenty-20 cricket.
Pollard would like to show their big-hitting prowess tomorrow.
For MI, the biggest gain from the opening game was young legspinner Mayank Markande’s performance on IPL debut as he accounted for Ambati Rayudu and MS Dhoni.
“He (Markande) has got great control of whatever he does, so, I think going forward he will be a great weapon for us,” MI Captain Rohit Sharma had said recently.
While googly is his stock ball, it will be interesting to figure how well Markande can bowl his legbreaks. Mumbai’s another concern will be their death bowling as Jasprit Bumrah, Mustafizur Rahman and Mitchell McLenaghan all missed their length.