IPL 2024: Mumbai play for pride, LSG hang by slim hopes in season’s last match at Wankhede

Mumbai, May 16 (IANS) Out of contention for the play-offs stage, Mumbai Indians will play for pride while their opponents Lucknow Super Giants will try to capitalise on their faint chances when the two teams meet for one last time this season in Match 67 of Indian Premier League (IPL) 2024 at the Wankhede Stadium, here on Friday.

Mumbai slinked out of contention a week back while Lucknow have very slim chances as they can reach 14 points if they win on Friday and a lot of things go in their favor.

The visitors are in seventh position with 12 points and though they can join Sunrisers Hyderabad, Chennai Super Kings, and Delhi Capitals on 14 points if they win against MI on Friday, they have a net run rate of -0.787 is way inferior to others. Also, both SRH and CSK have matches to play and thus can further add points to their tally. Delhi have completed their quota of 14 matches and thus will remain at 14 points.

LSG will not only have to win their match against MI by a huge margin on Friday but also hope that CSK and SRH slump to mammoth defeats in their matches. Considering the form that CSK and SRH have displayed so far, there are not a lot of chances of them suffering gigantic defeats in their remaining matches.

Thus, on Friday, both Mumbai Indians and Lucknow Super Giants will play for pride when they clash at the Wankhede on Friday. When they met a couple of weeks back, Lucknow defeated Mumbai and the five-time winners will be hoping to take revenge for the four-wicket defeat at the Bharat Ratna Shri Atal Bihari Vajpayee Ekana Cricket Stadium.

Mumbai has had a horrendous season and are currently at the bottom of the points table with eight points. Except for some patchy performances by Tilak Varma, Ishan Kishan, Rohit Sharma, and Suryakumar Yadav, rest of the batters failed to impress.

On the bowling front, Jasprit Bumrah was outstanding as usual, but has struggled for support constantly. He has so far claimed 20 wickets in 13 matches and is second in the race for the Purple Cap. Gerald Coetzee initially did well but he went off the boil midway through the season and Mumbai has constantly struggled to trouble the opponent’s batting lineup.

They did try a few youngsters like Naman Dhir and Anshul Kamboj but lack of consistency had been their bane throughout the season.

Lucknow were in contention till a couple of weeks back before they suffered four defeats in their last five matches, thus harming their chances big time.

They have lost three successive matches going into Friday’s encounter and will be hoping that things come together once again, like it did at the start of IPL 2024.

Skipper KL Rahul has done well with the bat barring the last few matches when nothing worked for LSG. He is their top scorer with 465 runs in 13 matches while Nicholas Pooran has accumulated 424 runs so far.

More than his runs, Rahul, unfortunately, made news more for his omission from the T20 World Cup squad and the public talking down he received from LSG owner Sanjiv Goenka after their embarrassing defeat to Sunrisers Hyderabad. Though LSG officials, including assistant coach Lance Klusener on Thursday, claimed that everything has been sorted out, the last is yet to be heard on this matter.

In the bowling department, the only satisfactory thing for LSG was the unearthing of speed merchant Mayank Yadav, who bowled the season’s fastest delivery before his tournament was cut short by injury. Undoubtedly, he has been the IPL 2024’s biggest find for LSG, something on which they would like to build on in the next season.

Both teams would be hoping to give one more opportunity to young players in their squad and hope that they make a mark before next year’s mega auction.

Squads:

Mumbai Indians: Ishan Kishan(w), Rohit Sharma, Naman Dhir, Suryakumar Yadav, Tilak Varma, Nehal Wadhera, Hardik Pandya(c), Tim David, Gerald Coetzee, Piyush Chawla, Jasprit Bumrah, Nuwan Thushara, Shams Mulani, Shivalik Sharma, Dewald Brevis, Romario Shepherd, Mohammad Nabi, Kumar Kartikeya, Luke Wood, Shreyas Gopal, Harvik Desai, Arjun Tendulkar, Anshul Kamboj, Akash Madhwal, Kwena Maphaka

Lucknow Super Giants: KL Rahul(w/c), Quinton de Kock, Marcus Stoinis, Krunal Pandya, Nicholas Pooran, Ayush Badoni, Deepak Hooda, Krishnappa Gowtham, Ravi Bishnoi, Naveen-ul-Haq, Yash Thakur, Yudhvir Singh Charak, Ashton Turner, Manimaran Siddharth, Amit Mishra, Devdutt Padikkal, Arshin Kulkarni, Mohsin Khan, Kyle Mayers, Matt Henry, Prerak Mankad, Arshad Khan, Shamar Joseph

IANS