Happy Birthday, and good luck, Zak!

Zaheer Khan turned 43 yesterday and instead of having a birthday bash, he was sweating it out with the Mumbai Indians team for an important practice session before their final league stage game against bottomplaced Sunrisers Hyderabad.

Mumbai, on 12 points, would have been wanting KKR to slip up in their last game yesterday - which would have kept KKR also on 12 points. Mumbai would still have to beat Sunrisers to make a backdoor entry into yet another play-off of the IPL.

When I spoke to ‘Zak,’ he was very clear and said they would give their best shot whatever the result of the KKR vs Rajasthan Royals match. Mumbai have a big task to qualify for the play-off after KKR’s win because their net run-rate is -0.048 compared to KKR’s 0.294. Mumbai did make up in their last game by limiting Rajasthan Royals in Sharjah to just 90 runs and chasing down the target in eight overs to lift their run rate.

Zaheer hopes his boys will go for it, and who knows - as Mumbai have the firepower to make it as they showed in their last match.

And if Mumbai do make it, they will be a dangerous side and will be hard to beat as they will come in to the play-off with lot of confidence and of course having the experience of winning big matches after having won the IPL five times.

Whether they make it or not, we can only come to know this evening but Zaheer Khan, who has been Director of Mumbai Indians, has still not given up hope. This is why Mumbai Indians are called ‘Kings of IPL’ for their never-say-die attitude.