Finance
By: Shree1news, 08 APR 2021
Mumbai Indians, captained by Rohit Sharma, will start their Indian Premier League (IPL) title defence against Virat Kohli-led Royal Challengers Bangalore in Chennai on Friday. The match is expected to be a cracking contest as both groups have among the best Twenty20 players from the world over in their setup. Whereas the defending champions didn’t tinker a lot with their core at the player auction, RCB invested closely in overseas all-rounders by roping in Glenn Maxwell and Kyle Jamieson for the upcoming season. Since Rohit took charge of the Mumbai-based franchise, they’ve been the team to beat in the IPL.
Rohit took over the reins from Ricky Ponting midway through the 2013 season and in the same year, he led Mumbai to their first IPL title.
He went on to win 4 more titles in the next seven years, becoming the most successful leader in the history of the tournament.
Mumbai Indians’ juggernaut floored every other team in the 13th edition of the IPL as they clinched their fifth title.
As Mumbai gear up for their title defence, they also have the chance to become the only team in the IPL to win three titles on the trot.
RCB, who rely heavily on their batting, will be hoping to start out their season with a win against a formidable team like Mumbai Indians.
Despite having among the greats of the game in their repertoire, RCB are yet to get their hands on the IPL trophy.
The Virat Kohli-led side have been part of three IPL finals however they’ve failed on all three occasions.
Last year, Kohli took RCB to the playoffs but they lost in the eliminator to SunRisers Hyderabad.
As a result of ongoing coronavirus pandemic, no team will play any games on their home ground in this year’s IPL.
All the matches will be performed across six venues — Chennai, Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkata, Bengaluru and Ahmedabad.
Squads:
Mumbai Indians: Rohit Sharma (c), Quinton de Kock, Suryakumar Yadav, Chris Lynn, Ishan Kishan, Aditya Tare, Anukul Roy, Anmolpreet Singh, Saurabh Tiwary, Kieron Pollard, Hardik Pandya, Krunal Pandya, Jimmy Neesham, Arjun Tendulkar, Marco Jansen, Piyush Chawla, Jayant Yadav, Rahul Chahar, Trent Boult, Jasprit Bumrah, Adam Milne, Nathan Coulter-Nile, Mohsin Khan, Yudhvir Singh.
Match starts at 7.30 pm IST.
Source:A-N
