IPL: Formidable Mumbai face bottom-placed Bangalore

Mumbai, April 30 (IANS) In-form Mumbai Indians (MI) are all set to take on bottom-placed Royal Challengers Bangalore at the Wankhede Stadium here on Monday.

The Rohit Sharma-led Mumbai are on the second spot with seven wins in nine matches, while lacklustre Bangalore are at seventh spot after having won just two of their 10 games.

Mumbai, who have virtually qualified for the knock-out stage of the cash-rich tournament will have an advantage as the hosts have just lost one game on their home ground.

High on confidence after Mumbai edged past Gujarat Lions in a super over in the last match, the hosts will like to dominate Bangalore from the start.

Mumbai's bowling department has been in brilliant form. Their batting department has also shown its class so far in the tournament.

Opener Parthiv Patel along with Jos Buttler, Rohit, Nitesh Rana and Hardik Pandya are also going through a purple patch that will surely help the home team in outplaying the visitors.

It also seemed like that the upcoming match between two team would be a lop-sided one because down-and-out Bangalore, who have some quality batsmen like Chris Gayle, Virat Kohli, AB de Villiers and Shane Watson have drastically failed to click in unison.

Unlike Mumbai bowlers, Bangalore also lack experience in their bowling department. They lack some quality front-line bowlers who can do damage in the death overs.

So Bangalore would bank on their key spinner Samuel Badree to execute the plans and gave the visitors some positivity.

Squads:
Mumbai Indians: Rohit Sharma (captain), Lendl Simmons, Mitchel Johnson, Mitchell McClenghan, Nitish Rana, Parthiv Patel (wicketkeeper), Saurabh Tiwary, Shreyas Gopal, Tim Southee, Lasith Malinga, Krunal Pandya, Keiron Pollard, Ambati Rayudu, Asela Gunaratne, Harbhajan Singh, Hardik Pandya, Jagdish Suchith, Jaspreet Bumrah, Jos Buttler, Karn Sharma and Vinay Kumar.

Royal Challengers Bangalore: Virat Kohli (captain), AB de Villiers, Chris Gayle, Yuzvendra Chahal, Harshal Patel, Mandeep Singh, Adam Milne, Vishnu Vinod, Sreenath Arvind, Kedar Jadhav (wicketkeeper), Shane Watson, Stuart Binny, Samuel Badree, Iqbal Abdulla, Travis Head, Sachin Baby, Avesh Khan, Tabraiz Shamsi, Tymal Mills, Aniket Chaudhary, Praveen Dubey, Billy Stanlake.

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