SRH look to return home from Mumbai with playoffs plans still intact
Written by I Dig Sports
Match details
Mumbai Indians (10th; W3, L8) vs Sunrisers Hyderabad (4th; W6, L4)Mumbai, 7.30pm IST (2pm GMT)
Big picture
By the time Monday dawns, Mumbai Indians (MI) will either be out of the reckoning for the playoffs of IPL 2024, or all but. Heading into their last three games of the league phase, the most they can realistically hope for, in all likelihood, is to lift themselves off the bottom of the table, finish somewhere near its middle, and get a clear picture of who to retain and who to let go of before the big 2025 auction.
On such results can hinge the fate of entire seasons. It feels especially true right now, with the playoffs race as tight as it is. With four games left, SRH will look to control everything they can control, and hope that enough of the 50-50 moments go their way to keep them near the front of the playoffs queue.
Form guide
Mumbai Indians LLLLW (last five completed games, most recent first)
Sunrisers Hyderabad WLLWW
Previous meeting
Team news and Impact Player strategy
Rohit Sharma was MI's Impact Player in their last game, against Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR), a back spasm forcing the team to use their ex-captain in this role. He should return to the starting XI if he is back to full fitness. MI may also reconsider the idea of deploying just two overseas players: with Rohit designated to come off the bench as an almost mandatory impact sub, they were unable to use either Mohammad Nabi - whose offspin could have been very useful on a pitch where the part-timer Naman Dhir ended up bowling three overs - or the big-hitting Romario Shepherd off the bench, so it felt like a waste to start neither of them.
Likely XII: 1 Rohit Sharma, 2 Ishan Kishan (wk), 3 Suryakumar Yadav, 4 Tilak Varma, 5 Hardik Pandya (capt), 6 Tim David, 7 Nehal Wadhera, 8 Romario Shepherd/Mohammad Nabi, 9 Gerald Coetzee, 10 Piyush Chawla, 11 Jasprit Bumrah, 12 Nuwan Thushara
Sunrisers Hyderabad
SRH made a significant decision in their last game, leaving out the out-of-form Aiden Markram and bringing in the bowling allrounder Marco Jansen. They are likely to stick to that overseas combination at the Wankhede, with their last bowling pick - either Jaydev Unadkat, Umran Malik or Mayank Markande - likely to be conditions-dependent.
Likely XII: 1 Travis Head, 2 Abhishek Sharma, 3 Anmolpreet Singh, 4 Heinrich Klaasen (wk), 5 Nitish Kumar Reddy, 6 Abdul Samad, 7 Shahbaz Ahmed, 8 Marco Jansen, 9 Pat Cummins (capt), 10 Bhuvneshwar Kumar, 11 T Natarajan, 12 Jaydev Unadkat/Mayank Markande
In the spotlight
Stats that matter
- SRH's two most dangerous spin hitters have terrific records against Piyush Chawla. Abhishek Sharma has hit the legspinner for 40 runs in 16 balls in T20s while being dismissed twice, while Klaasen has hit him for 28 runs in 14 balls while being dismissed once.
- MI would love to have Tim David facing Natarajan in the death overs. So far, David has scored 47 off 16 balls from the left-arm quick without being dismissed.
- Travis Head is eight runs away from the 3000 mark in T20s.
- Bhuvneshwar Kumar needs three wickets to get to the milestone of 300 in T20s, while Unadkat is one short of 100 IPL wickets.
Pitch and conditions
The Wankhede is usually characterised by high scores and tall run-chases, but the most recent game there, between MI and KKR, had a different flavour, with the spinners coming into their own. Chawla picked up 1 for 15 in three overs, while Sunil Narine and Varun Chakravarthy returned identical figures of 4-0-22-2 for KKR. It remains to be seen if this was a sign of wearing pitches in the second half of the season or just a one-off.Karthik Krishnaswamy is an assistant editor at ESPNcricinfo
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