Mumbai Indians will face the Delhi Daredevils in an inconsequential game at Pretoria; the penultimate game of the league stage.
 
Mumbai has already crashed out of the tournament, and a win here will only be of academic interests, while Delhi had become the first team to qualify for the knock-out stages at this year’s IPL.
 
Mumbai (6/5 at Paddy Power to beat Delhi) has had a reasonable break going into this game, but with nothing to play for, they would have been a distracted lot. They have had only one batsman who has been consistent right through the tournament – J.P.Duminy(4/1 at Betfred to be Mumbai’s best) – apart from a few sparkles from Sachin Tendulkar at the start of the tournament. Tendulkar’s (7/2 at Paddy Power to be the top Mumbai scorer) form tapered off towards the end, and that, combined with Sanath Jayasuriya’s (7/2 at Sky Bet to be best Mumbai batsman) consistent run of failures meant that Mumbai did not have too many aggressive starts to their inning.
 
Dwayne Bravo has flown back to West Indies to play in the ODI series against England, and so they will heavily rely on Abhishek Nayar (8/1 at Betfred to be best Mumbai batsman) as their all-rounder in the middle-order. In fact, Nayar could see himself getting promoted by a position or two.
 
On the other hand, Delhi (4/5 at Stan James to win game) may have got through, but two successive losses leading up to this game means that they will need to carry some momentum into the semi-final by beating Mumbai. Apart from Delhi’s minor travails, Virender Sehwag (7/2 at Boylesports to be best from Delhi) will be one worried man. Coming into the tournament as one of the favourites to be the top scorer at the end of it, Sehwag has tried everything but hasn’t been able to get a start. This in unnatural, because Sehwag’s usual issues with batting have been related more towards not been able to converts his starts.
 
Gautam Gambhir (7/2 at Paddy Power to be best Delhi batsman) will also need to get going, though, the good news is that he is batting through to the fifth or the sixth over at least. This means that concentration could be an issue that he will need to overcome to be able to match the in-form A.B. de Villiers (7/2 at Ladbrokes to be Delhi’s top scorer) and T.Dilshan (9/2 at Paddy Power to be best batsman from Delhi), who was rested in the previous game. Andrew McDonald (12/1 at Paddy Power to be top scorer for Delhi) had replaced Dilshan, but looked a little rusty after not having played competitive cricket since the series against South Africa. He may give way to Dilshan for this game in order to get him match-fit before the semi-finals. Dave Warner may not get a chance, unless a top-order batsman gets injured, or Sehwag wants to rest his opening partner, Gambhir.
 
I, for one, will back both the beleaguered batsmen; Sehwag and Jayasuriya, to come good in this game!
 
Tips:
Favourites: Mumbai Indians (6/5 at Paddy Power)
Top Mumbai batsman: Sanath Jayasuriya (7/2 at Sky Bet)
Top Delhi batsman: Virender Sehwag (7/2 at Boylesports)