In what will be the eighth game of the Indian Premier League this season, the Mumbai Indians will take on the Royal Challengers Bangalore in an away game. The match will be played at the M Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bangalore.
Bangalore v Mumbai odds:
Both sides had won the first game that they played in. Mumbai crushed the Delhi Daredevils by bowling them out for 95 and running through to the target after an initial hiccup or two. Bangalore, on the other hand, were tested by the Kochi Tuskers before the inexperience of the Kerala side showed and the Royal Challengers cruised home.
So, the bookies may put the previous year’s runner-up Mumbai (8/11 at William Hill) as slightly favourites for this game, the truth is that Bangalore (6/5 at SkyBet) at home have been one of the best teams in the IPL.
Ground and Pitch:
Hard, bouncy and assisting the pace bowlers. This is how the Bangalore wicket usually is but if the World Cup was anything to go by, there will be a lot of runs in it for the batting team.
Player News:
Neither side will want to make too many changes to the line-up. After all, both go into the game with a win, and changing a winning combination will not make too much sense.
However, the one change that the Mumbai Indians could look to make will depend heavily on the fitness of Andrew Symonds (7/1 at BetFred), who had missed out the previous game due to an injury. If he is fit, Symonds will walk into the playing eleven and should replace James Franklin (16/1 at SkyBet). It was also a surprise to see Davy Jacobs (9/2 at bet365) keeping wickets for the side instead of Ambati Rayadu (11/2 at SkyBet), who was the keeper last season. It also frees up a spot for a frontline batsman in the order like T Suman (5/1 at BetFred) or Moises Henriques (16/1 at BetFred).
Bangalore have one of the strongest top-orders in the competition what with Tillakaratne Dilshan (7/2 at SkyBet) at the top of the innings, Virat Kohli (4/1 at bet365) in the middle and AB de Villiers (7/2 at Stan James) to finish off in the end. De Villiers has been in the form of his life and he exhibited that in the previous game as he raced off to a matured and yet quick half-century.
Where the side benefitted greatly was through the batting of Mayank Agarwal (5/1 at BetFred) at the top of the innings against Kochi, after the early fall of Dilshan.
Prediction:
Tough call, could go right down to the wire this game.
