The five-time champions were aiming for a hat-trick, which would be a first in the tournament’s 14-year-history, but poor show by their batsmen has let the team down
Sanju Samson
Mumbai Indians’ mega-stars will be making one last ditch effort to put their derailed Indian Premier League campaign back on track when they take on a confident Rajasthan Royals in their penultimate league match on Tuesday. The five-time champions were aiming for a hat-trick, which would be a first in the tournament’s 14-year-history, but poor show by their batsmen has let the team down.
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The wrinkles on Rohit Sharma’s forehead and the grumpy look on his face are telling a tale that is unheard of in the MI contingent till now. And in this backdrop, they are now facing Rajasthan Royals, who stunned Chennai Super Kings with a superlative batting performance from two Mumbai men—Yashasvi Jaiswal and Shivam Dube.
What MI, RR have to do
The equation is simple for both the teams. They not only have to win both their matches, but also win big so that their poor net run-rates are taken care of.
Royals have a net run-rate of -0.337 and MI, after a poor batting show against Delhi Capitals, are seventh at -0.453. The team losing on Tuesday will be out of the tournament, but then Kolkata Knight Riders are already on 14 points with a positive NRR of 0.294.
Tricky for Mumbai Indians
Therefore, even if Mumbai win against Rajasthan and then happen to thrash laggards Sunrisers Hyderabad in their final match to reach on 14 points, there’s no guarantee that they would be able to go through. Hence, Rohit (341 runs), Suryakumar Yadav (222), Quinton de Kock (297) and Kieron Pollard (232) need to shine.
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