IPL 2021 KKR vs MI Match 5

image: BCCI

Every team in the 14th edition of the Indian Premier League has now played a match each. Out of the eight teams, four teams are on the top and the four teams are at the bottom of the points table.

These positions will be changed entirely in the due course of the tournament but, we can see which team has flaws and which team doesn't with this table. 

In the forthcoming games, we will see how the teams will be able to rectify their flaws to be the table-toppers at the end of the league stage.

Today, the fifth match is going to be between the Kolkata Knight Riders and Mumbai Indians in M.A Chidambaram Stadium, Chennai.

Kolkata Knight Riders

In the first match against Sunrisers Hyderabad, KKR managed to win the game by scoring big in the first innings and bowling really well in the second Innings.

The middle-order batsmen didn't perform well in the last match but, luckily the top order did stay strong in the crease for a while. Especially, Rahul Tripathi's innings is amazing he scored 53 runs out of 29 balls.

Coming to bowling, the team did choose to go first over with Harbajan Singh but didn't give another chance in the middle overs. With his experience, he can be able to pick wickets.

Kolkata Knight Riders Squad

Probable Playing 11:

Shubman Gill, Nitish Rana, Shakib Al Hassan, Karun Nair, Dinesh Karthik, Eoin Morgan, Andre Russell, Pat Cummins, Prasidh Krishna, Shivam Mavi, Varun Chakraborty. 

Mumbai Indians

In the first match, Mumbai Indians lost to Royal Challengers Bangalore by 2 wickets. Mumbai Indians are unable to score runs in the death overs of the first innings of the match. 

RCB bowler Harshal Patel picked a five-wicket haul in that match. Out of those five, four are in the final over of the match and he didn't give the Mumbai Indian's batsmen score extra runs in the final over.

What the Mumbai Indians should sort in this match?

The teams opening pair - Eventhough, Chris Lynn scored a good 49 runs in 35 balls, he failed to communicate with his partner at the other end of the 22 yards. This costed Mumbai Indians Rohit Sharma's wicket in the early stages. They need to get Quinton de Kock back to the playing 11.

The death batting - The Mumbai Indians have the highest death overs run rate compared to other teams due to their famous players Hardik and Kieron Pollard. But they failed to deliver the runs for their team. This need to change very soon.

Bowling - Except for Rahul Chahar, everyone bowled well and able to pick the wickets but the team need Hardik Pandya as the all-rounder to play more efficiently.

Mumbai Indians Squad

Probable Playing 11 *: Rohit Sharma (c), Suryakumar Yadav, Ishan Kishan (wk), Anmolpreet Singh, Hardik Pandya, Krunal Pandya. Kieron Pollard, Adam Milne, Jasprit Bumrah, Trent Boult, Piyush Chawla/Rahul Chahar.

Toss:  The team who won the toss will be going to bowl first. They didn't want to break the trend which is happening in the IPL right now.