Rohit Sharma’s Mumbai were the only side who were better than Dhoni’s Chennai Super Kings in the history of the competition.
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Earlier, Saurabh Tiwary and Steven Smith played fine innings to lead Rising Pune Supergiants (RPS) to a reasonable 159 for 5 against Mumbai Indians (MI) in Match 29 of Indian Premier League (IPL) 2016 at Pune on Sunday.
The spin-pace duo of M Ashwin and Thisara Perera have done the bulk of the damage for his team, picking up 7 and 6 wickets so far and the onus will be on them to earn Pune early breakthroughs on Friday.
“The main reason to shift one of the qualifiers and eliminator from Eden Gardens is that the time duration is too short between the last home match of KKR scheduled for May 22 and the qualifier”. Rohit is now second in run-getters list with 383 runs in nine games and three runs behind David Warner (386 runs). They will go all guns blazing as a win here will open up a four-point lead for them at the top of the table, which would help them experiment with their line-up in the upcoming games. For Mahendra Singh Dhoni, the sixth defeat in eight games keeps them in the bottom rung with only four points in their kitty.
The big emphasis for the Proteas next season is to try to regain their top-dog status in Test cricket – they have slipped to third – and that quest begins against New Zealand in a two-match home series.
In this tournament, Rohit has tried to change his game trying to anchor the chase with controlled aggression.
The batting might of Gujarat once again came to the fore as they notched up the compelling total of 195 runs on the last ball in a thrilling finish at the Maharashtra Cricket Association (MCA) stadium in Pune.
Mumbai Indians win toss, opt to field against Pune Supergiants. Supergiants have no other specialist opener in the squad, and it would be interesting to see who opens the batting for hosts today. After playing the role of anchor for the first 15 overs he opened up toward the end and finished the match off with a six in the 19th over. RPS 36-1, 4 overs.
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West Indies all-rounder Dwayne Bravo and Dhawal Kulkarni have been the pick of the bowlers for the Lions and have been ably supported by tweakers Pravin Tambe and Ravindra Jadeja who have bagged five and four wickets, respectively.
