Mumbai Indians will face Punjab Kings in the 31st match of the IPL. Both teams will face each other on Saturday (April 22) at the Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai. Mumbai will be eyeing their fourth consecutive win against Punjab. In this match, all eyes will be on Arjun Tendulkar, son of the greatest batsman Sachin Tendulkar. This fast bowler played an important role in the victory against Sunrisers Hyderabad.
Instead of fast bowler Jasprit Bumrah, who was ruled out of this season due to injury, Mumbai got Arjun to bowl the first over of the innings in the match against Hyderabad. After this, captain Rohit Sharma also gave him the last over of the innings where Hyderabad needed 20 runs to win. But Arjun gave the team a 14-run victory by giving five runs. He also got his first wicket in IPL in the form of Bhuvneshwar Kumar. He took one wicket for 18 runs in 2.5 overs.
Green, Kishan, and Tilak are also in form
Mumbai all-rounders Cameron Green, Ishan Kishan, and Tilak Verma are also running in good form. Green scored an unbeaten 64 in 40 balls against Hyderabad and also took a wicket. He became a man of the match. Apart from him, Kishan played a flamboyant inning of 58 runs in 25 balls against KKR. At the same time, Tilak has also been playing small useful innings. At the same time, in bowling, left-arm fast bowler Jason Behrendorff is getting Mumbai early wickets, while he is well supported by experienced spin bowler Piyush Chawla.
Lack of peak
The difficulties of Punjab are not reducing. It is difficult for captain Shikhar Dhawan to play this match due to a shoulder injury. It will take a few more days for him to recover. In such a situation, the lack of Dhawan is hurting the team. English all-rounder Sam Karan, who is taking over the captaincy in his place, has not been able to do well this season with his captaincy and performance. Apart from him, the batting of the team has also not performed as expected.
In the last match, Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) defeated Punjab at their home in which the bowlers along with the batsmen performed poorly. RCB had scored 174 runs for four wickets while beating the bowlers of Punjab. Then Punjab was bundled out for 150 runs. Only Prabhsimran Singh (46) and Jitesh Sharma (41) were able to put up some fight against the RCB bowlers.
Possible playing-11 of both the teams
Mumbai Indians: Rohit Sharma (Captain), Ishan Kishan (Wicket-keeper), Suryakumar Yadav, Cameron Green, Tilak Verma, Tim David, Arjun Tendulkar, Nehal Badhera, Hrithik Shokeen, Piyush Chawla, Jason Behrendorff.
Punjab Kings: Atharva Tayde, Prabhsimran Singh, Matthew Short, Liam Livingstone, Harpreet Singh Bhatia, Sam Karan (captain), Jitesh Sharma (wicketkeeper), Shahrukh Khan, Harpreet Brar, Kagiso Rabada, Arshdeep Singh, Rahul Chahar.
