Mumbai Indians take on a depleted Rising Pune Supergiant in Qualifier 1 for a spot in the finals. To tilt the equation more in favour of MI, the match is being played at the Wankhade. This is the first of the qualifiers and the team winning it will sail through to the finals, so both teams have a lot to play for. Without in-form Ben Stokes, the visitors will start as underdogs, but there are players who can put their hands up and come good to see RPS to the finals. Tripathi is in good form apart from Unadkat. They would hope Ajinkya Rahane and Mahendra Singh Dhoni come good in this crucial encounter. Smith has been in rich vain of form in the tournament he will look to step it up a notch considering the importance of the match.
The teams have met four times, with Rising Pune winning three matches and losing one.
In fact, RPS are the only team this season who have ousted MI twice this season, so that should give them confidence ahead of the clash. There are rumours that Khwaja might get a game in Stokes’ absence.
Likely XI:
Mumbai Indians 1 Parthiv Patel (wk), 2 Lendl Simmons, 3 Rohit Sharma (capt), 4 Nitish Rana/Ambati Rayudu, 5 Kieron Pollard, 6 Krunal Pandya, 7 Hardik Pandya, 8 Harbhajan Singh, 9 Mitchell McClenaghan, 10 Lasith Malinga, 11 Jasprit Bumrah
Rising Pune Supergiant 1 Ajinkya Rahane, 2 Rahul Tripathi, 3 Steven Smith (capt), 4 Usman Khawaja/Mayank Agarwal/Rajat Bhatia, 5 MS Dhoni (wk), 6 Manoj Tiwary, 7 Daniel Christian, 8 Washington Sundar, 9 Shardul Thakur/Lockie Ferguson, 10 Jaydev Unadkat, 11 Adam Zampa.
