The Mumbai Indians will play the Deccan Chargers at the Brabourne Stadium in Mumbai. This is the 33rd game of the third edition of the IPL and it does look like the teams are now beginning to heat up really quickly. Mumbai Indians go into the game with six wins so far in the tournament, whereas Deccan Chargers have four wins, but seem to have lost momentum with two successive losses.

Mumbai Indians are not only on a roll but it also looks like another win here, and they should have qualified for the semi-finals. In their last game, they were run close by the Kings XI Punjab, but that was because Tendulkar failed at the top of the order and the Punjab side bowled well in the middle of the innings.

However, it remains to be seen whether the middle-order can replicate their form if sachin tendulkar fails once again. The last time he did not score too many runs was in the game against Bangalore and the Mumbai side had lost the mach. This will mean that the dismissal of Tendulkar makes a lot of difference to the fortunes of the opposition even in this format of the game and it will need to be seen whether the middle order can take charge of the situation.

Saurabh Tiwary has played a couple of matured innings for Mumbai, but it is the rest of them that need to start firing. This includes the likes of both, Dwayne Bravo and Kieron Pollard who just haven't been at their best. Bravo has been mediocre with his bowling, but his batting lefts lot to be desired, whereas Pollard has not got the big shots going despite being the costliest player of the tournament.

For the Chargers, the story is similar to that of the Mumbai team. Adam Gilchrist has failed to get the runs and hence the side has failed to deliver with the bat so far. This has meant that the middle order has felt the pressure and in the last couple of games has not been able to live up to it. One can definitely expect a change or two within the Deccan side.

Jaskaran Singh could be given the axe and they could try out someone else. Even in the batting, Venugopal Rao could be brought up the order, whereas, most importantly, they need someone to bat in the latter overs with a lot more aggression. The Chargers, according to me, have lost games in the last few overs, because the batsmen have not been able to get the necessary acceleration, having exhausted their resources quite early.

Tag :- Adam Gilchrist   Deccan Chargers   Dwayne Bravo   Mumbai Indians   Sachin Tendulkar   Venugopal Rao