Having snatched victory from the jaws of defeat defending champions Mumbai Indians bounced back strongly in their previous match against Kolkata Knight Riders. They will be keen to maintain the winning momentum when they meet Sunrisers Hyderabad in their third match of IPL 2021 in Chennai on Saturday.
Getting the combination right will be uppermost on Sunrisers captain David Warner’s priority after suffering back-to-back defeats in their previous games. Chasing has been Sunrisers’ achilles’ heel during the first two matches, once again bringing under scanner the lack of depth in their side.
Kane Williamson, who missed Sunrisers’ first two matches due to an elbow injury, is recovering well and is expected to attain full match-fitness “within a week”. That should be good news for them.
The 30-year-old Williamson suffered a small tear in his left elbow tendon and was ruled out of the home ODI series against Bangladesh in March ahead of the IPL. However, the New Zealand captain on Friday said his “recovery is going really well”.
With only Warner and Rashid Khan being certainties among the overseas players, a fit Williamson is a must for Sunrisers, factoring in his prowess against spin bowling. It also remains to be seen if they will persist with two wicketkeepers in the XI — Wriddhiman Saha and Jonny Bairstow.
The other issue has been team’s bowling with T. Natarajan not in the kind of form he was last season and Bhuvneshwar Kumar also struggling with his length.
Mumbai Indians bowling coach Shane Bond stressed that it was important to get Warner and Bairstow out quickly. “Got to get those two guys out. Davey is one of the best batsmen in the IPL, talisman for their team. We know how important they are,” Bond said on Friday.
“They are very disciplined with the way they go about their work. They flogged us in the last game last season. They played beautifully. We plan the same for every team... how we are going to get them out, how we are going to best utilise the conditions,” added Bond.
Bond said that the key to winning championships was having a strong attack and Mumbai Indians have “had five international bowlers playing in the bowling line-up for a long-time.”
The New Zealand stalwart praised the leg-spinner Rahul Chahar, saying the 21-year-old is a wicket-taking bowler and his role never changes in the star-studded team.
Chahar returned with match-winning figures of 4/27 against KKR. “He is doing extremely well, if you look at Rahul, he is still incredibly young man, who has played a fair-bit of cricket and now some high-pressure cricket, and (in) finals and a key member of our team, so in terms of his development, I still think he is got a long way to go,” Bond said.
