Match facts
Mumbai Indians v Delhi Daredevils
Mumbai, April 22, 2017
Start time 2000 local (1430 GMT)
02:52
Hogg: Daredevils must bring Anderson and Nadeem back
Head to head
Last season: Both teams won their respective home games – Daredevils by ten runs at the Feroz Shah Kotla and Mumbai by a thumping 80-run margin in Visakhapatnam, their second home.
Overall: It’s a stalemate with both teams having met 18 times and won nine each.
In the news
All of Mumbai’s wins have come while chasing, including their last game, where they made short work of Kings XI Punjab’s 198.
Ambati Rayudu has returned to training after suffering a groin injury in Mumbai’s opening game, but is not yet available for selection. With Nitish Rana currently holding the orange cap, it may be some time before Rayudu finds a spot again.
The likely XIs
Mumbai Indians: 1 Parthiv Patel (wk), 2 Jos Buttler, 3 Nitish Rana, 4 Rohit Sharma (capt), 5 Hardik Pandya, 6 Kieron Pollard, 7 Krunal Pandya, 8 Harbhajan Singh, 9 Mitchell McClenaghan, 10 Lasith Malinga/Tim Southee, 11 Jasprit Bumrah
Delhi Daredevils: 1 Sanju Samson, 2 Sam Billings, 3 Karun Nair, 4 Rishabh Pant (wk), 5 Shreyas Iyer, 6 Angelo Mathews/Corey Anderson, 7 Chris Morris, 8 Jayant Yadav/Shahbaz Nadeem, 9 Pat Cummins, 10 Zaheer Khan (capt), 11 Amit Mishra
Strategy punt
- Two of Malinga’s three most expensive spells in T20 cricket have come in this IPL. While that raises the possibility of Tim Southee taking his place, if Mumbai do persist with Malinga, they may not want to bowl him in the slog overs. Malinga has gone at 8.80 an over in the Powerplay this season. It is significantly better than 11.47 in the slog – which is the worst he has fared in the last five overs across seasons. Daredevils have a run rate of 7.33 in this period, the worst among all teams.
- There is a strong case for Daredevils to open with spin. Jos Buttler has scored at 7.23 an over against spinners this IPL, as opposed to 10.28 against fast bowlers. The numbers are starker for Parthiv Patel, his opening partner, who has scored at 9.36 an over against pace. Against spin, the number plummets to 5.55, along with four dismissals in as many innings.
Stats that matter
- Wankhede Stadium has not been a happy hunting ground for Daredevils, having registered only one win, and four defeats, including in the last three times they played here.
- Both teams have proven to be death-over giants in this edition of the IPL: Mumbai have the best run rate – 12.26 – in the last five overs, followed by Daredevils, who have scored at 11.44 an over.
- Kieron Pollard has hit Amit Mishra for ten sixes, the most for a batsman against a single bowler in the history of the IPL.
- In this edition, Sanju Samson has scored at 6.09 an over against spinners, which is significantly lower compared to his scoring rate – 10.24 – against pacers. However, against Harbhajan Singh, Mumbai’s most capped player, Samson boasts better figures, with 74 runs off 54 balls across all T20s at 8.22 an over without being dismissed even once.
- Despite losing three out of their five matches, Daredevils’ net run rate, 1.16, is the best among all teams so far. The next best, 0.71, belongs to the second-placed Kolkata Knight Riders
Akshay Gopalakrishnan is a sub-editor at ESPNcricinfo
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Source: ESPN Crickinfo