Mumbai Indians and Kolkata Knight Riders will meet in the Indian Premier League [IPL] Qualifier 2 at the M. Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bengaluru on Friday, to decide who faces Rising Pune Supergiant in the final.
Mumbai come into this game having lost in Qualifier 1 against Pune. A second chance comes their way as they finished first in the league stage, with the playoff system giving a cushion to teams that finish in the top two.
On the other hand, Kolkata got the better of Sunrisers Hyderabad in a rain-curtailed Eliminator and there’s a good chance that the weather could have a say in the outcome of Qualifier 2 as well.
Ahead of the match, we have the latest team news, start time and date, as well as how you can watch all the action from the UAE.
DATE, TIME, VENUE INFO
Date: May 19, 2017 (Friday)
Time: 18:30 GST, 20:00 local time (IST), 14:30 GMT
Venue: M. Chinnaswamy Stadium, Bengaluru
WHERE TO WATCH, LIVE STREAMING INFO
TV: UAE – OSN Sports Cricket HD, India – Sony Six, Sony Six HD (English), Sony Max, Sony Max HD 3 (Hindi), UK – Sky Sports
Online streaming: hotstar.com, Hotstar app (in India only)
LIVE: Sport360.com
TEAM NEWS, SQUADS, PREDICTED XIs
MI SQUAD: Rohit Sharma, Kieron Pollard, Lasith Malinga, Hardik Pandya, Parthiv Patel, Harbhajan Singh, Ambati Rayudu, Jasprit Bumrah, Shreyas Gopal, Lendl Simmons, R Vinay Kumar, Mitchell McClenaghan, J Suchith, Siddhesh Lad, Jos Buttler, Nitish Rana, Tim Southee, Jitesh Sharma, Krunal Pandya, Deepak Punia, Nicholas Pooran, Mitchell Johnson, K Gowtham, Karn Sharma, Saurabh Tiwary, Asela Gunaratne, Kulwant Khejroliya.
Mitchell McClenaghan has been very expensive in the last two matches that he has played in, which could tempt Mumbai to look at bringing in Mitchell Johnson or Tim Southee.
Harbhajan Singh was missing from the playing XI on Tuesday and one wonders if he might make a return in place of Karn Sharma here.
LIKELY MI XI: Patel (wk), Simmons, Rohit (c), Rayudu/Rana, Pollard, Krunal, Hardik, Karn/Harbhajan, McClenaghan/Johnson/Southee, Bumrah, Malinga.
KKR SQUAD: Gautam Gambhir, Sunil Narine, Kuldeep Yadav, Andre Russell, Manish Pandey, Suryakumar Yadav, Piyush Chawla, Robin Uthappa, Shakib Al Hasan, Chris Lynn, Umesh Yadav, Yusuf Pathan, Sheldon Jackson, Ankit Singh Rajpoot, Trent Boult, Chris Woakes, Rishi Dhawan, Nathan Coulter-Nile, Rovman Powell, R Sanjay Yadav, Ishank Jaggi, Darren Bravo, Sayan Ghosh, Colin de Grandhomme.
With Manish Pandey injured, expect Ishank Jaggi and Suryakumar Yadav to keep their places in the team.
It’ll be interesting to see what opening combination the Knight Riders go with in this match. Chris Lynn will in all likelihood be one of the openers, while the other could be either Sunil Narine, Gautam Gambhir, or Robin Uthappa.
LIKELY KKR XI: Narine, Lynn, Gambhir (c), Uthappa (wk), Pathan, Jaggi, Suryakumar, Chawla/Kuldeep, Coulter-Nile, Umesh, Boult.
FORM
(Last five matches – with latest match first)
MI: L W L L W
KKR: W L L W L
MATCH PREDICTION
At this stage of the tournament, it’s quite hard to predict which way a match will go. With rain around, the toss might end up being a crucial factor in this game.
Having exhibited better form in the league stage, Mumbai go into the match as slight favourites.