 As the fifth season of Indian Premier League continues, Pune Warriors will
take on Mumbai Indians in Pune on Thursday. The two teams have met earlier
in the tournament, when they opened the season's campaign with a meeting in Mumbai.
Pune Warriors have lost three matches in a row and such a slip up sees them in
seventh place on the points table now. They need to stem the flow of defeats as
they look to be in with a real chance of reaching the last four.
Click for Live Score Card of Pune Warriors Vs Mumbai Indians
In their last match, they lost to Deccan Chargers, making them the only side
to have lost to Chargers this season. Worryingly for Sourav Ganguly, his bowlers
were unable to stem the flow of runs towards the end of the innings as Ashish Nehra and Ganguly conceded 50 runs in two overs.
With Nehra letting them down, Wayne Parnell will be the other relied upon name.
With the bat, Michael Clarke started off his IPL well while Steven Smith
and Sourav Ganguly also made valuable contributions.
Mumbai Indians have ten points from nine matches and are currently third on the
table. In their last match, they outperformed Deccan Chargers by a mile, bowling
them out for 100 before chasing the target with 11 balls to spare.
Rohit Sharma and Lasith Malinga will be the key men as the duo have
been in good form while Harbhajan Singh is also slowly rediscovering his lost
form. Kieron Pollard, who missed the last game, is again likely to sit out due
to injury.
Sachin Tendulkar, the newly appointed Member of the Parliament, will have cricket
on his mind right now as he aims to play a good knock since coming back from injury.
Pune Warriors won by 28 runs in the two sides' earlier match defending
a low score of 129. They will need a similar effort from the team to restore
confidence in their own abilities. The match starts at 8.00pm.
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