Rajasthan Royals after scoring a victory over Chennai Super Kings in the last match at their home, now arrive at the Wankhede Stadium, Mumbai. Mumbai Indians who have been extremely impressed with their winning streak will be up against their Points table partner. This match will be a virtual knockout with the loser set to be out of the playoffs race. Here are the expected probable XI.
Kings XI Punjab
KXIP has taken three consecutive heavy losses and the situation is extremely gloomy for the Punjab team. They have looked terrible whenever Gayle and Rahul have failed to deliver. Their middle-order has not supported their openers and has disappointed.
In the match against Kolkata, KXIP bowling was carted and they conceded the highest score in the IPL 2018. In the last match against RCB, their batting failed to turn up and could muster only 88 runs. RCB cantered to an easy win.
The spot Punjab will again be worrying about is that of Mayank Agarwal who scored 2 in the last match. They also missed Mujeeb in the last match, Stoinis will again miss out. Manoj Tiwary is likely to be included.
Playing XI –
Chris Gayle, Ravichandran Ashwin (c), Aaron Finch, Mayank Agarwal/Manoj Tiwary, Mohit Sharma, Karun Nair, Lokesh Rahul (wk), Axar Patel, Ankit Rajpoot, Marcus Stoinis/Mujeeb Rahman, Andrew Tye
Mumbai Indians
Mumbai Indians lost their last match against Rajasthan Royals playing at the Wankhede Stadium. The loss will set them back mentally but now this is the chance for them to beat mentally shaken Kings XI Punjab.
The heavy lead in the net run-rate means that Mumbai Indians are still in the race of playoffs. They will have show their A-game versus Punjab.
In the last match, they went in with an unchanged XI. The likely change in this match is that of JP Duminy being replaced with either Pollard or Milne.
Playing XI
Jean-Paul Duminy/K Pollard/Adam Milne, Rohit Sharma (c), Mitchell McClenaghan, Suryakumar Yadav, Ben Cutting, Evin Lewis, Jasprit Bumrah, Hardik Pandya, Ishan Kishan (wk), Krunal Pandya, Mayank Markande
