Match Preview: Royal Challengers Bangalore vs Mumbai Indians

Ground Reality and pitch: Situated south of Sandton in Illovo, Wanderers nicknamed 'The Bullring' is the home of the Highveld Lions. This ground goes down in history as hosting one of the greatest ODI matches when South Africa chased down a colossal target of 434 runs set by Australia. Wanderers posts a hard wicket providing assistance to the seamers. The bounce is also favoured by the batsmen because the ball comes on to the bat quicker enabling better strokes.

Humidity: 88% | Chances of Rain: Showers expected

Team Updates:

Bangalore: Gradually finding its feet in the Indian Premier League, Royal Challengers Bangalore will aim to spring another surprise when it takes on the in-form Mumbai Indians for the first time in the tournament's second edition. Back to back wins over Kolkata Knight Riders and Kings XI Punjab in the last two matches has not just lifted the Royal Challengers' spirit but has also helped the team rise from the bottom to fifth in the points table. The side's regular skipper USD 1.55 million buy, Kevin Pietersen, has left for national duty after leading it to the win over Knight Riders but it didn't seem to have affected the side much the other night when it stunned fourth-placed Punjab.

Mumbai: The Mumbai team is in good form. After the narrow defeat against Kings XI, the Sachin Tendulkar-led outfit bounced back to beat the struggling Knight Riders. The team is currently third on the points table with three wins from six matches, one of which was washed out. J P Duminy, who was subdued in the early part of the tournament, is now also among the runs after notching two half centuries in as many matches against Punjab and Kolkata. Mumbai's explosive batting gives it a slight edge over Royal Challengers.
Contest to watch:

Tendulkar vs. Kumble: One is a master batsman while the other is a wily craftsman in the art of spin bowling. The old war horses of Indian cricket would face-off at the 'Bullring' much to the delight of the cricket fans around the world.

Numbers game:
11: The number of wickets taken by Lasit Malinga in the IPL 2009
7: The number of catches taken by Virat Kohli in this edition of IPL
8.50: Jesse Ryder's batting average in the IPL 2009
About whom did Fred Trueman say this: "I sometimes used to wonder, in his playing days, if he realised just how great a bowler he was. When he was really spinning the ball, you could actually hear the fingers click as he delivered. He really was a prodigious finger spinner". Answer and win KF Airtickets

Teams:

Mumbai Indians (From): Sachin Tendulkar(c), Sanath Jayasuriya, Ajinkya Rahane, Jean-Paul Duminy, Abhishek Nayar, Graham Napier, Saurabh Tiwary, Harbhajan Singh, Zaheer Khan, Pinal Shah(w), Lasith Malinga, Rohan Raje, Dwayne Bravo, Shikhar Dhawan, Chetanya Nanda, Dhawal Kulkarni, Dilhara Fernando, Jaydev Shah, Kyle Mills, Luke Ronchi, Mohammad Ashraful, Rahil Shaikh, Ryan McLaren, Yogesh Takawale

Bangalore Royal Challengers (From): Jesse Ryder, Shreevats Goswami, Jacques Kallis, Rajesh Bishnoi, Robin Uthappa, Virat Kohli, Mark Boucher(w), Roelof van der Merwe, Praveen Kumar, Anil Kumble(c), KP Appanna, Balachandra Akhil, Vinay Kumar, Dale Steyn, Abhmanyu Mithun, Bharat Chipli, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Cameron White, Devraj Patil, Dillon du Preez, Gaurav Dhiman, Ishank Jaggi, Jagadeesh Arunkumar, Jitendra Patil, Karan Sharma, Kedar Jadhav, Manish Pandey, Muralidharen Gautam, Nathan Bracken, Pankaj Singh, Raju Bhatkal, Rohit Sabharwal, Ross Taylor, Saurabh Bandekar, Sreenath Aravind, Sunil Joshi, Tinu Yohannan, Udit Patel, Wasim Jaffer

Match Preview: King's Eleven Punjab vs Kolkata Knight Riders

Preview by Saurabh Somani

Ground Reality: The ground has hosted four matches already, though all have not been played on the same pitch. There have been some big totals scored, and one of the boundaries is short, which both teams would look to exploit. The weather forecast is for clear skies, so there should be a good day's cricket to look forward to.

The Teams: In my preview for the teams before their first match, I had written that Punjab have one advantage over Kolkata because their boat hasn't quite sunk as low yet. That gap has only widened, with Punjab stringing together some good victories, while Kolkata can't seem to do anything right - on and off the field.

Kolkata Knight Riders: They desperately need to manufacture a victory from somewhere, and get back the belief in the side. Had they had self-belief, they might well have pulled off a victory against Mumbai in their return match. Their one explosive batsman who looked to be in some kind of form is gone, and with Gayle's departure the pressure on McCullum to find his form is immense. The silver lining for them is that Hodge looks to have found some touch, while the bowlers put up an improved showing in their last match.

King's Eleven Punjab: Even though they lost to Kolkata the last time through Duckworth-Lewis, they'll go in this match as firm favourites. They have uncovered a good bowler in Yusuf Abdullah, while Irfan Pathan has got his outswinger going again, making him a difficult proposition to face. Sangakkara has been their rock in the middle order, and with Yuvraj too finding form in the last match, they seem to be settling down into a workable combination.
Contests to Watch:

Ishant Sharma vs Yuvraj Singh - They've played with each many times, and know each others games pretty well. It would be interesting to see if Ishant can exploit Yuvraj's initial hesitancy at the crease, or whether Yuvraj can come out swinging against Ishant.
Ajantha Mendis vs Sangakkara and Jayawardene - The young prodigy against his mentors - the current Sri Lannkan captain and the former one. Can Mendis use his variations to good effect against the men who've overseen his baptism in international cricket?

Numbers Game:
1 - The number of innings out of 11 that Shaun Marsh failed to cross 20, while playing for Punjab in IPL 2008. No wonder they miss him up the order.
3 - The number of 50+ partnerships that Kolkata has had this year. Only Mumbai has fewer (2) but they have the bowling to withstand that, while Kolkata doesn't.
Trivia:
Yuvraj Singh in-form has been one of the most outstanding Twenty20 batsmen, but he has under-performed while playing for Punjab. His average for them across all matches last year and this year is 24.72, while his average in other Twenty20 matches is 28, and in Twenty20 internationals it is 32.75. If he hadn't scored a 50 in his last match, the difference would have been even more stark.
Teams:

Kings XI Punjab (From): Karan Goel, Yuvraj Singh(c), Simon Katich, Kumar Sangakkara(w), Mahela Jayawardene, Irfan Pathan, Taruwar Kohli, Piyush Chawla, Yusuf Abdullah, Ramesh Powar, Vikramjeet Malik, Luke Pomersbach, Vikram RV Singh, Ajitesh Argal, Amanpreet Singh, Burt Cockley, Ranadeb Bose, Ravikant Shukla, Ryan Ninan, Sahil Kukreja, Sunny Sohal, Tanmay Srivastava, Uday Kaul, Wilkin Mota

Kolkata Knight Riders (From): Brendon McCullum(c), Chris Gayle, Saurav Ganguly, Bradley Hodge, Morne van Wyk(w), Wriddhiman Saha, Laxmi Shukla, Ajit Agarkar, Murali Kartik, Ashok Dinda, Ishant Sharma, Ajantha Mendis, Charl Langeveldt, Aditya Dole, Ameya Shrikhande, Abhisek Banerjee, Angelo Mathews, Moises Henriques, Anureet Singh, Anustup Majumdar, Arindam Ghosh, Avik Chowdhury, Bhavik Thaker, Chetan Suryavanshi, Debabrata Das, Dhiran Salvi, Gaurav Chabra, Gnaneswara Rao, Iqbal Abdulla, Ishwar Choudhary, Kshemal Waingankar, Mark Cameron, Mashrafe Mortaza, Mohammad Sanuth, Mohnish Parmar, Murtuza Hussain, Natraj Behera, Rajesh Verma, Ranadeb Bose, Rohan Banerjee, Sachin Rana, Sanjay Bangar, Sanjib Sanyal, Saurasish Lahiri, Shatrunjay Gaekwad, Sheldon Jackson, Siddarth Kaul, Sourav Sarkar, Sunny Singh, Vinit Indulkar, Yashpal Singh

Chennai win opens up the league

It was a disastrous start for the DareDevils as they lost Gambhir and de Viliers off consecutive balls and Dilshan was quick to follow them back into the dug-out. Just when Delhi was being written off, Warner and Karthik got together to treat us with some high quality batting, fireworks all around as they carted the bowlers to every possible corner of the park.

Both of them got to their fifties and looked good to seal the game for Delhi too but just then Jakati spun his side back into the contest. He removed the two key men and since then it was a landslide and by that time we knew Delhi stood no chance. Well, one positive thing that comes out of this Delhi defeat is that the tournament has heated up further with the points table looking a lot more competitive than it was sometime before. What a wonderful contest this is panning out to be. You just blink and you miss it!

Jakati: I was just waiting for my chance. I knew the wickets are quite helpful now. I have been working hard in the nets with Venky and Fleming. I just wanted to bowl wicket to wicket. Vary my pace, the straighter ones with the quicker ones and the slower ones.

Dhoni: Of course it is nice to win games, especially back to back. Suresh Raina and Badri batted superbly. I, Oram and Albie failed to capitalise on the start. We did not hit a single big hit. Tyagi got us a couple of crucial wickets and then everyone chipped in. Jakati was brilliant in the nets, Joginder was not bowling well so we picked Jakati. Even if it is a good flat track, left arm spinners can definitely have an impact on the game.

Gambhir: 160 was a very chaseable total on this track. This is the kind of a tournament where all the sides are very close to each other. We cant afford to be complacent. It will be great to have Sehwag back at the top of the order. Fantastic to see David Warner get runs, got his opportunity and he grabbed it with both hands. First IPL match, first fifty, fantastic achievement.

Shadab Jakati is the Man of the Match for his match winning spell of 4/24.