Rising Pune Supergaint will be missing the services of Ben Stokes as well in the first qualifier of the VIVO IPL 10 when they take on Mumbai Indians at the Wankhede stadium tonight. But the way they way won eight out of the last ten matches to make it to the playoffs they do start as favourites today. And this year more importantly they have beaten Mumbai in both the league matches. The team which wins will directly make it to the finals, while the losers still will have another chance to fight for the title.
RPS missed Imran Tahir in the last match too as he had to join the national duty and from today they will be without their best allrounder Ben Stokes, who too flew back to England. Missing Stokes is a big worry for them as they dont have any other overseas player of that stature to fill that gap. And today they might either p’lay Khawaja or Ferguson. First time they made it to the playoffs, but they have Mahahender Singh Dhoni to support, who knows how to handle the pressure well.
Both the teams will be going alll out, though they can still have another chance. Mumbai have struggled a bit in the last couple of matches. Last week they allowed Kings XI to score more than 230 runs and failed to chase in the end despite Pollard’s brilliant effort. But they don”t have any overseas players problems except Jos Buttler who had to leave. Simmons has perfectly fit in that position and has played couple of wonderful knocks as well. Today he is going to be a key man for them in batting, while they will depend on Malinga and McLenagan in bowling, along with Harbhajan.
If the wicket favours the batsmen like it did in the last match played here it will be really interesting tonight.
Tomorrow Sunrisers will take on Kolkatta Knight riders at Chinnaswami in another playoff match, which will be just like a quarterfinal encounter as the winner will have to play against the losers of today’match.
