Returning Suryakumar boosts Mumbai’s prospects against confident Rajasthan

Mumbai Indians will have the returning Suryakumar Yadav’s flamboyance in the middle-order as they look to bounce back against a confident Rajasthan Royals unit in the IPL in Navi Mumbai on Saturday.

The two teams head into the game at the DY Patil Stadium on the back of contrasting starts to the 15th edition of the tournament. While five-time champions MI suffered a fourwicket defeat against Delhi Capitals in their lung-opener despite posting 177, Rajasthan mauled Sunrisers Hyderabad by 61 runs in a dominant show.

So far in this IPL, there has been a trend of winning the toss and bowling first and it is likely to continue. Mumbai have two of the best openers in captain Rohit Sharma and Ishan Kishan, who blazed his way to an unbeaten 81 against DC, justifying his heavy price tag Suryakumar, who has joined the team after his recovery at the NCA, will likely bat at number three and has the ability to play match-winning knocks at any positions.

More than their batters, the Mumbai bowlers are the ones who would need to step up as they were unable to defend 177, and considering Rajasthan’s power-packed line-up, they would need to hit the right lengths.

Meanwhile, Rajasthan ticked almost all the boxes in their game against Sunrisers and were ahead in both bowling and batting, even as fielding remains a cause for concern, having dropped catches. The onus will be again on skipper Sanju Samson to lead from the front after he made a scintillating 55 in his team’s opener.

The RR openers — Yashashvi Jaiswal and Jos Buttler — got starts against SRH but they will need to convert them into substantial scores. The other batters including Devdutt Padikkal and Shimron Hetmyer also clicked and they would hope to repeat the show.