Mumbai and Bangalore To Come Head To Head
The 54th match of IPL 2023 will be played between Mumbai and Bangalore (MI vs RCB) at the Wankhede Stadium. Both teams will be eyeing victory because a win in this match can make their entry possible among top four teams in the points table.
Mumbai Indians are coming after producing a devestating batting performance against Chennai in their last match. On the other hand, Royal Challengers Bangalore was completely undone by rising team of Delhi Capitals.
Mumbai Indians Struggling For Consistency
Mumbai Indians’ problem is that their captain Rohit Sharma is out of form. Rohit has scored a total of 5 runs in his last four matches including 2 ducks, a 3-run score and a 2-run score.
The last time he came to bat at the Chinnaswamy Stadium in front of Bangalore, he was dismissed by Mohammed Siraj on a score of 1 run in 10 balls.
Mumbai’s rest of the batting order is playing its role well and Tilak Varma could not play in the last match, but in this match, he is fully fit to come back to the playing XI, so we can see a better Mumbai team.
There has also been a big change in Mumbai’s bowling, now in the coming matches we will not see Jofra Archer playing, Chris Jordan has been included in the team in his place.
Mumbai’s bowling has looked very inexperienced and under pressure in the tournament so far. As we know that Wankhede wicket is favorable for batting, and Bengaluru has a strong batting line-up, so there will be a big test ahead for Mumbai’s bowling attack.
Chris Green has played very good innings on the Wankhede ground so far, so once again he will be expected to show his skills in batting along with bowling.
Royal Challengers Banglore Keeping Things Slow
For Bangalore, the defeat against Delhi Capitals was a kind of wake up call. Faf du Plessis and Virat Kohli have given their team a good start but in the last few matches they have failed to give the team a flashy start.
Mainly Kohli, he is taking a lot of time and because of this, there is a lot of pressure on Du Plessis and he loses his wicket in the pursuit of playing fast.
For example, against Delhi Capitals, Kohli scored 50 off 42 balls on same wickets where Phil Salt scored 87 off 45 balls, which shows the difference in intent.
A good chance for Glenn Maxwell to pick his form, he will enjoy the even bounced track of Wankhede. Also, he has not scored big runs in the last two matches and his record is very good against Piyush Chawla.
Mahipal Lamor looks good in the middle order but so far the team has not got good support from Dinesh Karthik, he has not been able to finish the innings with big runs.
However, Dinesh Karthik can perform well today because he has played a lot of matches for Mumbai at Wankhede. In terms of bowling, Bangalore will be under a bit of pressure because as David Warner said in the last match, Siraj is Bangalore’s main bowler and if he is put under pressure, then the bowling line-up of Bangalore is very shattered.
But once again they have Josh Hazlewood, who will definitely take wickets in the opening overs because the wankhede pitch will provide both bounce and swing in the initial phase of the match.
Stats & Pitch Report
According to the statistics between Mumbai and Bangalore, Bangalore last won in 2015 at Wankhede. Mumbai has won three of the three matches played since then.
- In the first leg of this year, Bangalore won by 8 wickets over Mumbai.
- So far, 34 matches have been played between Mumbai and Bengaluru, in which Mumbai has won 19 times.
- Harshal Patel has taken 12 wickets against Mumbai in the last four matches.
- In the last four matches between the two teams, Mumbai’s Mumbai has lost four matches.
- Ishan Kishan has a strike rate of 102 in the last 4 matches against Bengaluru.
- The last time Mumbai and Bengaluru came face-to-face at Wankhede, Mumbai successfully chased down 171 runs.
- Mumbai Indians have played four matches at Wankhede this year, in which they have lost two.
- Batting first this year at Wankhede, the average score has been 190.
A good encounter on cards between Mumbai Indians and Royal Challengers Banglore. This year’s IPL is so exciting because the top four teams aren’t yet confirmed.