Former India player Aakash Chopra has said that the Mumbai Indians (MI) are unlikely to add Charith Asalanka to their playing XI for the IPL 2025 Qualifier 2 against the Punjab Kings (PBKS). He added that MI don’t have a lot of Indian seam-bowling options, and would have to play an additional overseas pacer if Deepak Chahar isn’t available. However, MI and PBKS will take on each other in Qualifier 2 of IPL 2025 in Ahmedabad on Sunday, June 1.
Previewing the IPL 2025 Qualifier 2 in a video shared on his YouTube channel ‘Aakash Chopra,’ he said, “Whoever wins the toss might decide to bowl first. However, if you see the last match, Punjab invited Mumbai to bat first, and they won the game, but Mumbai won the last match by scoring a lot of runs while batting first. I think dew will decide. If dew isn’t there, maybe you want to bat first and put a lot of runs on the board.”
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“If Richard Gleeson isn’t there and we don’t know about Deepak Chahar’s availability, a few holes are seen in Mumbai’s bowling, but they have superpower batting. Interestingly, they didn’t play Charith Asalanka in the last match. They might still not play him because there aren’t too many options in fast bowling apart from Ashwani Kumar,” he further added.
However, Aakash Chopra also added that the Punjab Kings’ 7-wicket win against the Mumbai Indians in their only previous meeting in IPL 2025 would play a key role for them as well.
“Punjab will take a lot of heart from the fact that when these two teams met last time, that too was an important match, it wasn’t an Eliminator, but whoever won would have finished in the top two and whoever lost would have finished at No. 3 or No. 4, Punjab won that game in style,” he said.
“It didn’t seem at all that Mumbai had come to compete, and that was the Mumbai that had Ryan Rickelton and Will Jacks, and the option of Corbin Bosch. However, they were totally destroyed. They were asked to bat first, and the Punjab Kings did the run chase very easily,” Aakash Chopra concluded.
