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Mumbai: Mumbai Indians face a stern test as they strive to keep their Indian Premier League (IPL) hopes alive when they clash with in-form Delhi Daredevils at the newly-built D.Y. Patil stadium on Sunday.
Daredevils are on a roll after snapping the four-match winning sequence of Chennai Super Kings and moving to the top of IPL standings on Friday.
Mumbai Indians, on the other hand, have been the whipping boys of the tournament, and they languish near the bottom of the points table in the eight-team league after losing four of their five matches.
After losing four matches in a row, Mumbai Indians managed to open their IPL account beating Kolkata Knight Riders in their last match.
Daredevils have emerged as the best bowling attack in the tournament and Mumbai Indians batsmen will have to put their best foot forward to stop the likes of veteran Glenn McGrath and Mohammad Asif. McGrath particularly has been at his best. Apart from restricting scoring he has also got crucial breakthroughs in every match.
Served well
Delhi have also been served well by young Yo Mahesh and skipper Virender Sehwag himself has bowled well whenever he has taken the ball.
Daredevils' batting is also in good shape with Sehwag and Gautam Gambhir leading the way. They are certainly the best opening combination and with Shikhar Dhawan at No 3 Daredevils have had a great start in most of their matches. Two of their wins have been by nine wickets and once by eight wickets against Chennai.
Against Chennai, Sehwag gave his new man, Abraham De Villiers, a chance and he responded with a neat 26 not out as Daredevils won by 8 wickets.
Gambhir has been in outstanding form with three fifties in five matches and holds the 'Orange Cap' for being the current top scorer of the tournament with 224 runs. Sehwag is second only to Gambhir and his total of 207 has 2 fifties, including the match-winning knock against Chennai which earned him his second Man-of-the-Match award.
Mumbai Indians can take some positives from the fact that they were able to put the Harbhajan Singh incident behind them.
Chin-up Dhoni
Chennai Super Kings will continue their aggressive approach and their defeat to Delhi Daredevils in the Indian Premier League (IPL) was not the "end of the tournament", skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni said on Friday night.
Reacting to his team's eight-wicket loss, their first in five matches in the Twenty20 league, Dhoni asserted that the Gautam Gambhir-Virender Sehwag partnership took the game away from the Super Kings.
"It was Sehwag's day and there was not much we could do, although he did give us a few chances. Both he and Gambhir are quality batsmen and tonight, they played extremely well," Dhoni said.
-IANS
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