Mumbai: Sunrisers Hyderabad will aim to recover from the recent slump and get back to winning ways when they face an under-pressure Mumbai Indians in a league encounter of the Indian Premier League (IPL) at the Wankhede Stadium on Tuesday.
Sunrisers have slipped from a comfortable three-match winning start, suffering back-to-back defeats to Kings XI Punjab and Chennai Super Kings (CSK) respectively, and would be keen to bounce back.
Defending champions Mumbai, on the other hand, have a tough task to rediscover themselves after slumping to their fourth loss in five games.
Mumbai had started their campaign with three losses on the trot before registering their first win over Royal Challengers Bangalore, but the three-wicket defeat to Rajasthan Royals on Sunday has once again put them under tremendous pressure.
With nine games left before the play-off stage, Mumbai find themselves in a tight situation to win at least seven of them to improve their chances. As such, a win over Sunrisers on Tuesday is imperative to keep them in the hunt. Barring local boy Suryakumar Yadav’s heroics with the willow, Mumbai have very little to boast of this season, with the other batsmen yet to deliver.
Yadav has had a consistent run of good scores in the opening slot, leaving him four short of reaching the 200-mark for the season, while skipper Rohit Sharma struck one match-winning knock of 94 against Royal Challengers Bangalore.
Mumbai’s biggest misery in batting has been the repeated failures of West Indian Keiron Pollard and his compatriot Evin Lewis, at the top while the all-rounder duo of Pandya brothers — Hardik and Krunal — have also failed to impress with the bat this season.
In the bowling department, the pace duo of Jasprit Bumrah and Mustafizur Rahman have been right on the money while Mitchell McClenaghan has got among the wickets despite finishing with a higher economy rate. The Pandya siblings have done a decent job with the ball.
Meanwhile, despite a three-match winning streak, Sunrisers find themselves at the lower half of the IPL table, thanks to the successive defeats to Kings XI and CSK.
While captain Kane Williamson has been in superb form, carrying the batting on his shoulders to amass 230 runs in five games, the other batsmen, including opener Shikhar Dhawan, have not given him adequate support.
Wicketkeeper-batsman Wriddhiman Saha has been particularly below par with a tally of just 62 runs and may soon make way for Shreevats Goswami.
Among other batsmen, Yusuf Pathan showed glimpses of his old attacking self against Rajasthan with a quick 27-ball 45, but still lacks consistency.
The bowling unit looks formidable with Bhuvneshwar Kumar leading the pack in the company of youngsters Siddarth Kaul, Billy Stanlake and T. Natarajan.
Afghan leg-spinner Rashid Khan along with Bangladesh’s Shakib Al Hassan will aim to contain the fancied Mumbai line-up in the middle overs.
