Having secured victory the hard way against Deccan Chargers on Monday, Mumbai Indians will be hoping for a smoother ride against table toppers Rajasthan Royals in match 12 of IPL 5, at the Wankhede Stadium on Wednesday. The controversy surrounding Deccan Chargers skipper Kumar Sangakkara's dismissal if anything worked in MI's favour and in some ways spurred them on for a last-ball win against Deccan, and Mumbai might just be looking to build on that in their all-important tie against Rajasthan.
Rohit Sharma's unbeaten 73 off 50 balls, which contained five sixes and included the famous winning blow, could not have come at a better time for Mumbai, who have been without the services of Sachin Tendulkar since the match against Chennai Super Kings in the tournament opener in which he suffered a finger injury off the bowling of Doug Bollinger. Mumbai will also be buoyed by their pace attack led by Munaf Patel and Lasith Malinga, who took seven wickets between them to restrict Deccan to 138 for 9.
Rajasthan, who have been unbeaten in the competition thus far, will be aiming to notch up their third successive win in the upcoming game against Mumbai. After putting it past Kings XI Punjab by 31 runs, Rajasthan went on to topple Kolkata Knight Riders by 22 runs, and currently find themselves at the top of the points table as a result of their superior run rate over Pune Warriors India, who also have two wins from as many matches. RR also have a favourable record against MI, having won four of their seven encounters since 2008, which gives them a slight mental edge in their upcoming fixture.
Apart from the individual brilliance of Ajinkya Rahane, who scored 98 off 66 balls against unjab, the success of Rajasthan has largely been based on team effort. In the game against KKR, Brad Hodge top-scored with 44 while Ashok Menaria made 40 as Rajasthan notched up 164 for 5. The Trinidad and Tobago medium-pacer Kevon Cooper - who took four wickets during Rajasthan's triumph over KXIP on IPL debut - once again turned out to be the highest wicket-taker against KKR with figures of 3 for 28. With the absence of star attractions, and the unavailability of Shane Watson for the first half of the tournament, it could well come down to team work once again for Rajasthan, as Rahul Dravid looks to maintain his side's winning ways. The arrival of Sri Lanka’s Dinesh Chandimal should gain him immediate entry into the playing XI, at the expense of either Owais Shah.
Probable XIs:
Mumbai Indians: 1 Richard Levi, 2 T Suman/Suryakumar Yadav, 3 Rohit Sharma, 4 Ambati Rayudu, 5 Kieron Pollard, 6 Dinesh Karthik (wk), 7 James Franklin, 8 Harbhajan Singh (capt), 9 Lasith Malinga, 10 Pragyan Ojha, 11 Munaf Patel
Rajasthan Royals: 1 Rahul Dravid (capt), 2 Ajinkya Rahane, 3 Shreevats Goswami (wk), 4 Ashok Menaria, 5 Brad Hodge, 6 Dinesh Chandimal/Owais Shah, 7 Johan Botha, 8 Kevon Cooper, 9 Ankeet Chavan, 10 Amit Singh, 11 Siddharth Trivedi
