On Friday, the Mumbai Indians (MI) will play the top-ranked Gujarat Titans (GT) at the Wankhede Stadium in Match 57 of the IPL 2023 season. This is a significant game for Mumbai, as a success would make them a stride nearer to fixing their spot in the IPL 2023 end of the season games.
On the other hand, Gujarat is close to qualifying for the playoffs, and a victory could secure their spot in Qualifier 1 and a top-two finish. MI’s batting line-up made a flat out joke of their run pursue against the Regal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) in their past game.
However, when the two teams last met in Ahmedabad, they performed poorly against the Titans. Because of this, certain matchups in the game are quite intriguing and may be crucial to determining who wins.
In light of this, let’s take a look at three of these competitions:
3) David Miller vs Piyush Chawla
Piyush Chawla, a leg spinner for the Mumbai Indians, had a bad game against RCB, but that doesn’t change the fact that he has been their best bowler this season. He will face GT star David Miller due to his natural wrist spin.
Mumbai will need Chawla to control Miller, who is regarded as one of the most consistent middle-order batters in the game.
In T20 cricket, Chawla has bowled Miller 40 times and dismissed him twice, allowing Miller only 36 runs. This could make chief Rohit Sharma keep the leg-spinner down for when Mill operator comes to the wrinkle.
2) Ishan Kishan vs Mohammed Shami
One of the most encouraging signs for the Mumbai Indians is the return to form of Ishan Kishan. The hosts really needed his 42-point cameo against RCB to get off to a fast start in their chase. However, his performance against GT in Ahmedabad was subpar, as he scored just 13 runs off 21 balls.
The GT pacer Mohammed Shami’s lethal swing and seam movement was particularly challenging for the southpaw to execute. This makes the matchup between them one to look out for.
In T20 cricket, Shami has only conceded 42 runs off 42 balls to the left-hander, but he has not yet dismissed Ishan. It will be interesting to see if Shami makes it difficult for Ishan Kishan with the new ball or if he chooses to counterattack once more.
1) Suryakumar Yadav vs Rashid Khan
Suryakumar Yadav arrived at his most noteworthy IPL score against RCB in the last game, as his 83 off only 35 balls assisted the hosts with overwhelming the pursuit of 200. GT’s star spinner Rashid Khan had a decent excursion against MI in the opposite apparatus, yet there was a sure stage where ‘SKY’ overwhelmed him.
Yadav has scored 50 runs in 37 balls against Rashid and is yet to be excused in T20s. They will rely on SKY to ward off the GT spinner if Mumbai is to avoid the threat posed by him. However, Rashid Khan probably has a lot of tricks up his sleeve, and it will be interesting to see who comes out on top in this particular player battle.