Preview : M55 - RCB vs DD

Mumbai Indians and Sunrisers Hyderabad are two contrasting teams. While the Mumbai Indians are coming off consistent wins barring their game against Royal Challengers Bangalore when they suffered a 39-run loss, the Sunrisers are slowly recovering after their heartbreaking loss to RCB just a night back. Mumbai Indians do have momentum on their side after a last over win against Kolkata Knight Riders in Mumbai and when they face the Sunrisers, it is a situation that they are very familiar with.

“It is just another big game for us,” Ricky Ponting, Mumbai Indians’ coach said. “We know the significance of this game but for us it is nothing new. We have been quite used to this for the last three weeks.

We’ve had six or seven big games in a row. We started this tournament poorly and we have had to win most of our games going into this game. Yes, there are some challenges ahead with the conditions and the opposition, but I will make sure that we focus on making sure we are in the best shape we can be.

” Ponting also stressed on the fact that the side had made a conscious effort to stay focused about the present rather than worrying too much about the future. It is a work process that has worked for them thus far and the Mumbai Indians were looking to continue it going into their do or die game in Hyderabad. “I have been really conscious over the last few weeks of making sure that our players have not focused on anything else other than the game at hand and our next game.

As it has gone on, there has been lots of talk about who might finish where and who is going to finish on top and who is going to finish second. That is all irrelevant to us. We have to make sure that we prepare well today, try and learn as much as we can about these conditions.

” Monitoring their opposition, Ponting added, “We have had a chance to watch the Sunrisers play their cricket over the last couple of months. We have a pretty good idea about how they are going about their cricket. But for me it is really important that we focus on us and how we are going to play our best cricket tomorrow.

As I have continually said to this group over the last two months, I don’t think we have played near our best cricket yet and if you look at our results we have won in really close games having been in trouble somewhere in some stage and dug our way out. Hopefully tomorrow we can put together forty overs of very consistent cricket and if we do that I think we will be really hard to beat. We know the heartbreak that the Sunrisers suffered last night.

I think it is going to be a really good contest tomorrow.” Ponting also applauded the way the team had risen to challenges and time and again had managed to spring up commendable performances during testing conditions. He cited their previous game against KKR as one of the examples and said the side had a lot of positives to take from it.

Looking ahead, Ponting believed there won’t be much tinkering with the playing eleven and the team would try to stick to their settled combination. Talking about combinations, Ponting also shed some light on the participation of Alex Hales who was named as replacement for Corey Anderson. “He will join us tomorrow.

He played a game last night in the UK and he is just about in a plane now. He will join us around lunch time tomorrow. It is probably unlikely that he will come into the team tomorrow having just got out of a plane.

If Hales turns up tomorrow and we happen to win our game and get into the next stage of the tournament, then we can start looking at different balances and what might work in different conditions. But I think it is unlikely that there will be too many changes for tomorrow. “Our whole team has been quite settled over the last seven to eight games we have played.

We haven’t made too many changes. The batting has remained the same. The balance looks pretty good to me at the moment.

We have got a few all-rounders there like Jagadeesha Suchith and Hardik Pandya. Kieron Pollard will probably bowl some more for us in the tournament. Overall the balance is pretty good, our team is pretty settled and I like having that settled feeling around that group.

I know the captain is of the same view. He has been very happy with the settled nature of our line-up and how the eleven players are coming together really well.” .

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