Five-time champions Mumbai Indians (MI) will take on the Lucknow Super Giants (LSG) in the Eliminator of the 2023 IPL at the MA Chidambaram stadium in Chennai on Wednesday. The Rohit Sharma-led side made it to the playoffs as RCB lost their final game to GT in Bangalore. This was hours after they themselves beat SRH in their final game of the league season in Mumbai by making a mockery of a target of 201. MI have won eight and lost six of their fourteen league games this season and finished fourth on the table.
So far this season, MI beat DC, KKR, RCB, PBKS, GT, and RR once and beat SRH on both occasions. They lost to RCB, PBKS, GT and LSG once and were second-best to CSK in both matches but bounced back strongly in the end to make the top four. The batters have been the stars for MI this season and have helped the team win even after poor performances from the bowling unit. In their final league game against SRH, Rohit Sharma (56 off 37) and Cameron Green (100* off 47) set the stage on fire as they went after the SRH bowlers to chase down the 201-run target with 12 balls to spare, after the MI bowlers had made a brilliant comeback in the slog overs to restrict the away side to 200/4 following sparkling fifties from SRH openers Vivrant Sharma (69 off 47) and Mayank Agarwal (83 off 46).
Surya Kumar Yadav is the top-scorer for the team with 511 runs so far this season at an astonishing strike rate of 186. He has scored one century and four half-centuries so far this season.
Tilak Varma has so far scored 274 runs at a strike rate of 158, but has missed the last few games due to injury but MI hope to have him back fit for the eliminator. Ishan Kishan has been in good form this season and has scored 439 runs so far. Skipper Rohit Sharma has scored 313 runs in the 14 games so far and looked to have returned to form with a half-century against SRH. Cameron Green scored his maiden IPL ton in the last game and has now scored 381 runs so far. Both Tim David and Nehal Wadhera have also chipped in with over 200 runs so far.
Barring a few good outings this season, the MI bowlers have mostly leaked runs in games and have needed the batters to bail the team out of difficult situations.
Although Chris Jordan has conceded almost eleven runs an over in four games so far he is expected to continue in the side owing to his death-bowling prowess. Behrendorff is expected to be the other overseas bowler in the line-up. He has picked up 14 wickets so far.
Riley Meredith has also chipped in with 7 wickets this season.
Piyush Chawla has been the surprise package for MI so far this season. The veteran spinner is the top wicket-taker for the side with 20 wickets so far at an economy of 7. Cameron Green has chipped in with 6 wickets. Arshad Khan, Akash Madhwal and Kumar Kartikeya have chipped in with 18 wickets between them so far.
Madhwal and Kartikeya are expected to make up the rest of the MI bowling line-up.
Openers: Rohit Sharma (c), Ishan Kishan (wk).
Middle order: Suryakumar Yadav, Nehal Wadhera, Tim David.
All-rounders: Cameron Green.
Bowlers: Chris Jordan, Jason Behrendorff, Piyush Chawla, Kumar Kartikeya, Akash Madhwal.
Impact Player: Vishnu Vinod, Akash Madhwal, Arjun Tendulkar, Hrithik Shokeen or Sandeep Warrier could be Impact player options for MI.
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