MI v LSG: IPL MATCH 36 PREVIEW

Will MI finally break the shackles and register their 1st win this season ? A question which is on every cricket lover's lips these days. 2008, 2014, 2015 and now 2022. Losing 1st 4/5 matches wasn't a new thing for MI. They even won the championship in 2015, made it to playoffs in 2014 and missed out narrowly in 2008. But things are diff this time. MI has become the 1st team to lose their 1st 7 games and In a 10 team tournament its quite difficult to seal your spot in top 4 and this MI side is weak on many fronts. What has been more bizarre from MI is their selections and playing 11 combinations in the 1st few games. They benched Tim David after one failure who they aggresively pursued in the auctions and went with just 2 Overseas players against RCB. MI most probabaly lost this season at the auctions and spending 8 cr on Jofra Archer who wasn't going to take part this year has proved costly. After continous failures, the team tried the likes of Fabian Allen, Riley Meridith but had to drop the former after 1 game. Perhaps, the biggest disappointment of the tournament has been the opening duo of Rohit & Kishan. This was the season Rohit had to step up being the most seniormost batter in the side. Ishan now has registered 5 consecutive low scores. MI have the worst death bowling rate in the tournament (13.2)

Lucknow's run of 3 consecutive wins was thwarted by a fiery Trent Boult spell and a Hetmyer special but Lucknow came back strong against MI in the very next game. KL Rahul scored a 100 against his favourite opponents. Since 2018, he hasn't missed a single opportunity to score against MI. Middle overs has been LSG's biggest strength in the bowling department. They have the best RR among all the teams. Major factor behind this is the spin duo of Krunal and Bishnoi who have an eco of 6.9 and 7.2 respectively in that phase. Addition of Marcus Stoinis has been a shot in the arm for LSG. Their only concern is death bowling which was evident in last 3 games against RR, MI and RCB and so Chameera could make way for Andrew Tye in that case

Probable XI

Mumbai Indians

Rohit Sharma (c), Ishan Kishan (wk), Dewald Brevis, Suryakumar Yadav, Tilak Varma, Kieron Pollard, Hrithik Shokeen, Danile Sams, Jaydev Unadkat, Riley Meredith, Jasprit Bumrah

Lucknow Super Giants

KL Rahul (c), Quinton de Kock (wk), Manish Pandey/Manan Vohra, Deepak Hooda, Marcus Stoinis, Ayush Badoni, Krunal Pandya, Jason Holder, Dushmantha Chameera, Avesh Khan, Ravi Bishnoi

Venue

Wankhede Stadium, Mumbai

-Average 1st innings total: 166.7
-Average 1st innings total in 2022: 158.2
-Average 1st Innings winning score: 179.7

-Highest total: 235/1, made by Royal Challengers Bangalore against Mumbai Indians.
-Lowest Score:–67/10, made by Kolkata Knight Riders vs Mumbai Indians

-Teams batting 1st: Have won 43 out of 90 times
-Teams batting 2nd: Have won 47 out of 90 times

Teams batting 2nd have won the last 14 out of 20 T20 games at the Wankhede

Record at Wankhede

MI: Played - 65, Won 39, Lost 26
LSG: Played - 2, Won 0, Lost 3

Head to Head

LSG leads by 1-0

Match Ups

Rohit v Chameera: 32/6 at 106 SR
Rohit v Avesh: 11/2 at 84 SR
SKY v Bishnoi: 18/3 at 106 SR

KL v Bumrah: 124/2 at 125 SR
KL v Unadkat: 88/1 at 166 SR
Manish v Bumrah: 66/0 at 194 SR
Hooda v Unadkat: 24/2 at 171 SR
Stoinis v Bumrah: 16/3 at 64 SR

Form Update
(Last 5 innings)

Key Players & Fanatsy Picks

Captain / Vice Captain

Suryakumar Yadav: MI missed a stable middle order batter in the 1st 2 games and were boosted by the addition of Sky in the match against KKR. He is a vital cog in this MI line up and has produced 3 consecutive 400+ seasons from 2018-20. 52(36) v KKR, 68(37) v RCB and almost a match winning knock of 43(30), followed by a couple of 30s are his last 5 outings since comeback from injury.

KL Rahul: 2814 runs at a SR of 140. No one has scored more runs than him since 2018. KL has put consistent 500+ runs seasons for 4 times in a row. He averages 85 against MI with 765 runs since 2018 and scored a 100 against MI in their last encounter as well as at Wankhede in 2019.

Quinton de Kock: He was one of the pillars of MI's batting line up. After switching to MI, QDK scored 500+ in 2 seasons. In Powerplay, he has scored the 2nd most runs in the last 3 seasons. He won the Man of the match award against SRH for his 80.

Tilak Verma:

The southpaw from Hyderabad was a member of India’s U19 World Cup in 2020. He was picked by MI at 1.7 crores after facing a little competition from SRH, CSK and RR. His last outings in VHT and SMAT are one of the major reasons why so many franchises raised the paddle for him. He scored 215 runs in SMAT at a strike rate of 147. Tilak Verma became the youngest batter for MI to score a half century in the last match against RR and followed it up with a 38 against KKR. He again lauched a quickfire attack against Punjab with 36 off 20 balls but was unfortunate to get run out. He was the top scorer in last game against CSK with 51

Budget Picks:

(Fantasy rating - 8/8.5 points)

Ravi Bishnoi: The 2020 U19 WC star succesfully made it into the national side in the recently held home series against WI. He won the MoM award on debut. He has an eco of 6.94 and taken 29 wkts since his debut in 2020 out of which 24 came in the middle overs.

Dewald Brevis: 121 runs at a SR of 161.3 in the debut season for this U 19 Star.

WildCard

Rohit's, Kishan's and Pollard's performances have been underwhelming for a while. It just takes few release shots to turn the tide for a player of their abilities and it could well be their day on a sunday evening at Wankhede.

Fanatsy XI