Mumbai Indians start their title defence campaign against new outfit Rising Pune Supergiants in the opening game of the season 9 of the Indian Premier League (IPL) in Mumbai.
The Supergiants, owned by RPSG Group, has roped in the successful combination of captain Dhoni and Coach Stephen Fleming from CSK. The Chennai team has been temporarily banned from the league for two years.
However, with Mumbai Indian’s having a more settled look and familiarity with the conditions at the Wankhede Stadium, Supergiants will need to pull out their A game to stop the home side.
The hosts, who turned around a disastrous start last year after losing the opening four games, have the right personnel on paper to diffuse the challenge from RPS.
Lendl Simmons, who orchestrated the bounce-back of MI last season, has shown his penchant for the Wankhede track with a blistering knock for eventual champions West Indies that knocked pre-tournament favourites India out of the World T20 at the semi-final stage on March 31.
Simmons and Sharma, who has decided to open the innings, are expected to pair up at the top with people like Ambati Rayudu while new buy and England’s hard-hitting wicket-keeper batsman Jos Buttler, New Zealand’s Corey Anderson, the big-hitting Kieron Pollard and Hardik Pandya will follow up later.
MI would be hard-pressed to fill in the void left by the absence of their injured pace spearhead Lasith Malinga who is unlikely to be fit at least for the first half of their league campaign, as informed on Thursday by Ponting at his media conference.
Thus the vastly improved Jasprit Bumrah will need to step up and give adequate support to the likes of Anderson, Tim Southee, Mitchell McClenaghan and Marchant de Lange.
In the spin department, MI will bank immensely on their experienced off spinner Harbhajan Singh.
Supergiants, on the other hand, appear to have a strong batting line-up with the likes of Ajinkya Rahane, Kevin Pietersen, Steve Smith, Mitchell Marsh and Francois du Plessis present in it, along with Dhoni.
They have a good set of all-rounders such as Albie Morkel and Irfan Pathan and a good mix of pace and spin in the bowling attack which is expected to be led by Ishant Sharma and Ravichandran Ashwin respectively.
The mini-battle between off-spin rivals Ashwin and Harbhajan should also liven up the contest.
Australian leggie Adam Zampa is also there to be called upon along with Ashwin’s Tamil Nadu teammate Murugan Ashwin, who is also a wrist spinner, along with left arm slow bowler Ankit Sharma of Madhya Pradesh.
The key however for the Supergiants will be how fast and how well they can gel as a team.
(With inputs from PTI)
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