IPL:Mumbai Indians Vs Delhi Daredevils Match Preview

Mumbai Indians and Delhi Daredevils not yet opened their winning account of this season.This two teams who represent the traditional powerhouses of Indian cricket – Mumbai and Delhi – will come up against each other in Match 9 of VIVO IPL 2018 on 14 April 2018, at 4:00 PM,at Wankhede Stadium, Mumbai.

Mumbai Indians have been at the receiving end of two nail-biters; in the season opener, they were at the receiving end of Dwayne Bravo’s onslaught that helped CSK to a win, while most recently, despite scoring a below-par 147-8 against Sunrisers Hyderabad, MI made a match out of it, only to be pipped right at the post. MI, who have established a reputation of being slow beginners, should be worried that despite all the might in their batting line-up, not one of their batsman has scored a half-century in their two matches so far. Against SRH, Evin Lewis’ 29 was the top score of the innings, while in the opener against CSK, three batsmen made 40s but none converted to a big score.

The Delhi Daredevils find themselves at the bottom of the table after two defeats in two matches. In their most recent outing – when they visited Jaipur, DD’s chances of getting their first points on the board were impacted by the weather. DD did well to keep the Rajasthan Royals to 153-5 in 17.5 overs, when the heavens opened up and forced the players off the field. DD were then given a steep target of 71 in 6 overs. Such towering targets are difficult to chase down, especially if the overs are few, and despite the best efforts of their power-packed batting line-up, DD fell short by 10 runs. The positives for DD from that match will be that they seem to have found a bowling combination that works; the addition of Shahbaz Nadeem was a welcome move, and Rahul Tewatia has done well in both the games justifying his selection over the experienced Amit Mishra.

By and large, so far this season, teams have done well when playing at home. Will the Mumbai Indians be able to convert home advantage to their first points of the season?

About Batsmen:Off the 22 times Evin Lewis has gone past 50 in T20 cricket, 20 have resulted in victories for his team; that statistic illustrates the impact he can have on the fortunes of teams he plays for. No boundary can be too big for the left-hander from Trinidad, and he only needs to stay at the wicket for a reasonable period of time to cause damage. Ishan Kishan is another of the destructive batsmen in the MI top-order; the pocket dynamo from Jharkhand has grown leaps and bounds in the last two years, and like with Lewis, he can cause plenty of damage if only he spends a reasonable period of time at the crease.

The Delhi Daredevils too have two left-handers in their top-order who can cause plenty of damage with the bat; Colin Munro has destroyed several bowling attacks in various parts of the world in the last twelve months, while Rishabh Pant needs to convert his cameos into significant scores.

DD will need more than the 48 runs the duo has scored in the four innings between them this season. Add Glenn Maxwell into the mix, and DD have a deadly trio.

About Bowlers:JaspritBumrah and Mustafizur Rahman, MI have two bowlers in their ranks who first made name for themselves in the T20 format. Both the quicks were off-colour in the season opener, but came into their own in their later spells in the match against SRH. MI will need them to cause plenty of damage with the ball, and hope the young leg-spinner Mayank Markande can continue to work his magic over with the ball.

In the days leading up to the season, it was expected that Chris Morris would be the leader of Delhi Daredevils’ bowling attack. However, in the two games so far, the South African has leaked close to ten runs per over; the soon-to-be-31-year has the pace to trouble batsmen and is capable of picking up wickets, but he needs to do the basics right first – maintain discipline and work on his temperament. Trent Boult was impressive with the new ball in the match against the Rajasthan Royals; he got the ball to move around off the surface and even troubled a technically-sound batsman like Ajinkya Rahane. The Kiwi left-armerused the slower one to dismiss Ben Stokes, and he will be feeling confident heading into his match.

Team Head to Head:

Overall: Matches – 20, Mumbai Indians won – 11, Delhi Daredevils won – 9

At the Wankhede Stadium: Matches– 6, Mumbai Indians won – 5, Delhi Daredevils won – 1.

The Mumbai Indians have gotten the better of the Delhi Daredevils on their last four visits to the Wankhede Stadium.

Gautam Gambhir’s batting average of 22.60 against the Mumbai Indians is his lowest against any of the currently participating eight IPL teams.

The last time Trent Boult played a match at the Wankhede Stadium – an ODI on 22 October 2017 – he walked away with the wickets of Shikhar Dhawan, Rohit Sharma, MS Dhoni and Hardik Pandya.

The batting strike-rate of Munro, Pant and Maxwell in T20 cricket read 148.69, 161.22 and 157.63 respectively.