The Mumbai Indians will face the Rajasthan Royals in the 66th game of this season's
Indian Premier League 2011. The situation is such that the Rajasthan Royals
are out of the contention for the playoffs whereas the Mumbai Indians need to
win one of the remaining two games to qualify for the next round. Although, not
winning a single game as well could help the side, the Mumbai Indians will not
want to get into a situation where they have to rely on their net run rate to
go through.
On the other hand, there is another angle to this. They have to ensure that they
can go through to the next round in the top two positions in the tournament. That
will help them two shots at the entering of the final, which should make it easier
for them.
Click for Live Score Card of Mumbai Indians Vs Jaipur Rajasthan Royals
That said, it will not be easy. There are two reasons for this. Rajasthan Royals have nothing to lose given that they are out of the tournament and
their captain is playing in his last game. Given that he was let off with only
a fine for his outburst on Sanjay Dixit and allowed to play this game, it will
be interesting to see how he goes about his business in this game.
Secondly, the Mumbai Indians are on a strange kind of a losing spree.
They had won eight of their first ten games, before losing two in a row - hardly
something that they would have enjoyed too much.
This will mean that they will look to ensure that they can overcome their recent
failings and get down to batting much better than they have in them. They have
started off far too slowly and then found it difficult to get moving later - resulting
in the side losing out on the runs.
What the Mumbai Indians will need from this game is to have the opening three
score aggressively as well and not expect the lower order to do the job for them.
Rajasthan will hope that Shane Watson is selected against and he can
going with his ability to get the quick runs at the top of the innings. On the
other hand, the Mumbai Indians will hope for Lasith Malinga to get a
couple of early wickets. He already has the Purple cap for him.
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