The Conditions The ground has seen consistently good battles between bat and ball, and is expected to be the same for the final league matches too. The forecast is for a partly sunny, partly cloudy day, and the seam bowlers will be hoping the clouds come on when they're bowling as it would make the conditions slightly more favourable to them.
The Teams After what seems like an eternity, we have an inconsequential match in the tournament, in the sense that the result of this match will neither affect Delhi's standing at the top of the table, nor give Mumbai any chance of qualifying for the semi-finals.
Mumbai Indians: Even though they're out of the semi-finals, they would want to win here so that they go above Rajasthan in the final points tally. They will be ruing their missed chances in a few close games, which has left them with no hope of a semis berth. Their problem has been that they have rarely fired as a team, and rode on individual performances to get their victories. Their exit must hurt them, because before the tournament they had looked amongst the best balanced teams on paper, but sadly that strength stayed on paper. Their bowling has suffered in Zaheer's absence and it doesn't look likely that he will play this match, and risk worsening his injury before the World T20 cup. Overall, a disappointing outing for them, which they would like to redeem with a win against the league leaders.
Delhi Daredevils: They would be eager to get back to their winning ways after the reverses against Punjab and Bangalore. However, that will not happen on a consistent basis unless Gautam Gambhir and Virender Sehwag find their form and do it fast. It is unreasonable to expect de Villiers, Dilshan and Dinesh Karthik to bail Delhi out of trouble in every single match. Delhi can thank their stars that they have done it so far, but they need a more wholesome contribution from their openers. Glenn McGrath has still not got a game, and with this being the last league game, and Delhi giving chances to those on the bench, he might hope to finally make the playing eleven. If he doesn't, it will be a very strange decision indeed, and one which Virender Sehwag ought to perhaps explain.
Contest to Watch
Lasith Malinga versus T Dilshan - The Sri Lankan team-mates have been stand-out performers for their respective teams, but Dilshan has been part of a successful outfit, while Malinga has lost more often than he has won. However, their individual performances have been top-class, and if the two do face-off in the middle, it will be an intriguing contest.
Contest that fans would wish to watch
Glenn McGrath versus Sachin Tendulkar - Every fan who has watched cricket from the mid-nineties to the mid-200s, will want to watch what used to be amongst the most classic contests in all cricket - be it Test matches, ODIs or even if these two stalwarts ever came face to face in club cricket or a 'galli' match! One more time, one last time - we want to see them go at each other.
Numbers Game:
85 - The number of runs by which AB de Villiers has outscored the combined totals of Gautam Gambhir and Virender Sehwag. de Villiers has 429 runs while the opening duo have 348 (Gambhir 239 and Sehwag 109).
1 - JP Duminy's rank in the 'Best Economy Rate' charts for the Mumbai Indians. He is also by far their leading run scorer in the tournament, and has proved to be worth every dollar of the massive 950,000 shelled out for him.
Teams:
Delhi Daredevils (From): Virender Sehwag(c), Gautam Gambhir, AB de Villiers, Tillakaratne Dilshan, Dinesh Karthik(w), Andrew McDonald, Rajat Bhatia, Amit Mishra, Pradeep Sangwan, Ashish Nehra, Dirk Nannes, Daniel Vettori, Mithun Manhas, Aavishkar Salvi, Vijaykumar Yo Mahesh, Glenn McGrath, Manoj Kumar Tiwary, David Warner, Farveez Maharoof, Owais Shah, Paul Collingwood, Tejashwi Yadav, Umesh Yadav, Yogesh Nagar
Mumbai Indians (From): Sachin Tendulkar(c), Sanath Jayasuriya, Ajinkya Rahane, Jean-Paul Duminy, Abhishek Nayar, Ryan McLaren, Yogesh Takawale(w), Harbhajan Singh, Chetanya Nanda, Dhawal Kulkarni, Lasith Malinga, Rohan Raje, Shikhar Dhawan, Zaheer Khan, Pinal Shah, Dilhara Fernando, Graham Napier, Jaydev Shah, Kyle Mills, Luke Ronchi, Mohammad Ashraful, Rahil Shaikh, Saurabh Tiwary
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