Gujarat Titans and Mumbai Indians will face each other in a do or die game of the ongoing IPL season on 30th May at Maharaja Yadavindra Singh International Cricket Stadium.
Match Preview:
After a flawless delivery, Washington Sundar turned around and walked over to give assistant coach Aashish Kapoor a high five. He had merited it. The spinner in the nets had just swept Sai Sudharsan, who simply cannot stop hitting or tossing his own bowlers around an empty stadium. There was a lot of uncertainty around the Tuesday night practice because the Gujarat Titans were still unsure of which of the two playoff games in Chandigarh they would play in. Nevertheless, Sudharsan continued to bat as normal. After he finished, some forty-five minutes in, Shubman Gill, the other batting glutton, took his position.
Before facing the title-hungry Mumbai Indians in a knockout match, the two need all the batting they can get because Jos Buttler won’t be playing in the playoffs.
On Friday, though, the tournament aristocracy will face two opponents: history and the tenacious Gujarat Titans. No club has ever finished fourth and gone on to win the championship since the playoffs were instituted.
Only once has a team chosen the longer Eliminator-Qualifier 2 path to glory (SRH from third place in 2016), and the top two teams have won 13 of those 14 championships. However, there is always potential for the unimaginable and the extraordinary to occur when you win as frequently and extensively as MI does. After six straight wins, MI will have a champion’s strut about them even if they finish in fourth place.
However, after missing out on a top-two finish, the Titans have no reason to think they’ve gotten themselves into the worst possible situation. They easily defeated a similarly fourth-place MI from the second qualifier on their way to the final just two seasons ago.
Since their founding in 2022, the Titans have been the best team (37 victories in 59 games), reaching two finals and winning one, even though they are not yet an IPL powerhouse. More importantly, they bounced back quickly from the setback brought on by a commotion that sent their champion captain, Hardik Pandya, racing home to Mumbai. By halting that six-game winning streak, GT has already pierced MI’s mid-season invincibility this season.
The game was likely to be skewed by the absence of a key batsman like Buttler, but players on national duty have also hurt MI’s top order. Ryan Rickelton and Will Jacks will need to be replaced, and they’re hoping that their new hires will be productive right away. Although a knockout match of this size didn’t require an advantage, Friday is made more unpredictable by both teams’ absence of reliable top-order players.
Probable Playing XIIs:
Gujarat Titans (probable): 1 Shubman Gill (capt), 2 B Sai Sudharsan, 3 Kusal Mendis (wk), 4 Sherfane Rutherford, 5 M Shahrukh Khan, 6 Rahul Tewatia, 7 Rashid Khan, 8 Gerald Coetzee, 9 Arshad Khan, 10 R Sai Kishore, 11 Mohammed Siraj, 12 Prasidh Krishna
Mumbai Indians (probable): 1 Rohit Sharma, 2 Jonny Bairstow (wk), 3 Tilak Varma, 4 Suryakumar Yadav, 5 Charith Asalanka/Bevon Jacobs, 6 Hardik Pandya (capt), 7 Naman Dhir, 8 Mitchell Santner, 9 Deepak Chahar, 10 Trent Boult, 11 Jasprit Bumrah, 12 Karn Sharma
Pitch and weather report:
Uneven square boundary dimensions and another sweltering evening. Since neither team has played at this location this season, they will both need to pick up new skills and adjust on the fly on Friday. They both defeated PBKS here last year.
Head-to-head record:
A total of seven games have been played between the two sides, Gujarat won 5 while Mumbai clinched victory in 2 games.In addition to winning all four of their previous meetings, including the second qualifier of 2023, the Titans have swept MI this season.
Prediction:
Mumbai are favourites to win the game.
Where to watch:
India: Star Sports Network, JioHotstar
Australia: Kayo TV, FoxTel Go
Bangladesh: T Sports, Toffee app
New Zealand: Sky Sports NZ
South Africa: SuperSport
Sri Lanka: Dialog
UK: Sky Sports, SkyGo
USA: Willow TV
Afghanistan: ATN
MENA: Cricbuzz
