Mumbai Indians won the toss and elected to bowl first against Royal Challengers Bengaluru in Match 25 of IPL 2024 at the Wankhede Stadium, here on Thursday.
Mumbai Indians made one change in the squad that won the match against Delhi Capitals with Shreyas Gopal coming in for Piyush Chawla.
Skipper Hardik Pandya said he chose to bowl first because the track would better to bat second as there was dew in the last couple of days.
“Similar track but in the evening (it) might be better to bat on. There was dew the last couple of days,” said Pandya at the toss.
The MI captain said the mood is the same in the camp after their victory in the last match after three successive defeats.
“Mood before and after the win has been the same. We play every game with a fresh start. Want to put early pressure with the new ball,” he said.
He said, “I heard it was the highest score without anyone scoring fifty, gives confidence to us that even one guy batting long we can score 234. At the same time, bowlers held their nerve in the powerplay well. It has been a chasing ground and looking at the tradition. Shreyas comes in for Piyush Chawla.”
Royal Challengers Bengaluru captain Faf du Plessis would have also liked to chase.
RCB have handed a debut to England and Surrey batting all-rounder Will Jacks, who came in place of Cameron Green. In all they made three changes, bringing in Mahipal Lomror and Vijaykumar Vyshak.
“We’ve tried to change a few things around. Our plan today is to bring a few fresh faces and give them chances. We want to make as few changes as possible but when you reach yourself in this position where you don’t play your best cricket, then you have to make a brave decision.
“The sixth game is the right time to do that. Virat (Kohli) has been excellent with consistency, but that’s what is frustrating, we can’t look at the opposition and say they’ve outplayed us. We’ve not done as well. But with T20 cricket, we are close to turning it around. Mumbai got that in their last game and we are looking to do the same. Three changes: Jacks comes in at No. 3. Mahipal is back. And Vyshak too,” said du Plessis.
Both teams have played each other on 32 occasions so far with Mumbai Indians winning 18 and RCB emerging victorious in 14. Mumbai have a great record at the Wankhede, having won more than 50 matches at home. At the Wankhede, both teams have played 10 times with MI emerging victorious on seven occasions while RCB won three games.
Playing XIs:
Mumbai Indians: Rohit Sharma, Ishan Kishan (wk), Tilak Varma, Hardik Pandya (c), Tim David, Romario Shepherd, Mohammad Nabi, Shreyas Gopal, Jasprit Bumrah, Gerald Coetzee, Akash Madhwal
Substitutes: Suryakumar Yadav, Dewald Brevis, Naman Dhir, Nehal Wadhera, Harvik Desai
Royal Challengers Bengaluru: Virat Kohli, Faf du Plessis (c), Will Jacks, Rajat Patidar, Glenn Maxwell, Dinesh Karthik (wk), Mahipal Lomror, Reece Topley, Vijaykumar Vyshak, Mohammed Siraj, Akash Deep.
Substitutes: Suyash Prabhudessai, Saurav Chauhan, Swapnil Singh, Rajan Kumar, Karn Sharma