 The Royal Challengers Bangalore will take on the Mumbai Indians in the eighth game of the Indian Premier League this season. The game will be played at the M Chinnaswamy in Bangalore, and will see the two previous runner-ups play against
each other.
Bangalore had finished runner-up to the Deccan Chargers in the 2009 edition of the tournament, which was followed by the 2010 edition in which the Mumbai Indians had finished second.
In this tournament so far, the two sides have played one game each. Both the
teams won their opening matches thanks to some good performances by the bat
and the ball; in case of Bangalore Royal Challengers it was the bat and
in case of Mumbai it was the ball that did the talking.
Click for Live Score Card of Bangalore Royal Challengers Vs Mumbai Indians
Bangalore played the Kochi Tuskers in their first game of the tournament, overcoming
them in a keen tussle. The target was 161 to chase down and Bangalore needed
39 off the final three overs before AB de Villiers pushed the side into the
win. On the other hand, it was the Lasith Malinga show in the game for
Mumbai Indians against the Delhi Daredevils. Mumbai ensured that the Delhi team
were restricted to a paltry 95 before knocking those runs off easily.
In this game, it will be a match-up between two teams who will look to go to the top of the points table and look at ensuring that they get an early heads up. The game will be played at Bangalore and hence one can expect the bowling to be dominated by the pace bowlers, who can extract the bounce from the pitch.
There shouldn't be too many changes to the team at all. The batting will continue
to revolve around the likes of T Dilshan and AB de Villiers at the top of the
innings with Virat Kohli expected to do the job for his side as well.
On the other hand, the Mumbai Indians have a strong-looking batting line-up
as well. They opened with Sachin Tendulkar and Davy Jacobs, but that
really looked like a waste of a foreigner's slot - instead, one gets the sense
that the wicket-keeping gloves can be given to Ambati Rayadu and Jacobs can
be replaced by Andrew Symonds once he gets fit again.
The bowling will see Malinga joined by Harbhajan Singh, Ali Murtaza
and Munaf Patel doing the job while having the likes of Symonds and Pollard
to back them up.
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