Mumbai favourites for sixth straight win

Will Shahid Afridi prevail in the opening dash?...

Match facts
Sunday, May 18, 2008
Start time 20.00 (local), 14.30 (GMT)

The Big Picture
The last time these teams met Adam Gilchrist blasted a century off 42 balls to hand Mumbai a crushing defeat, their fourth in a row. It was Deccan's first win in the IPL; they have won just one more game since and must win on Sunday to keep alive their faint hopes of a semi-final spot. Mumbai went on from that match to string together five consecutive wins, the last two in spectacular and emphatic fashion, and will fancy their chances of becoming the first team in the IPL to win six in a row.

Mumbai's streak has been based on the explosive batting of Sanath Jayasuriya, the bowling led by Shaun Pollock and the morale-boosting return to the side of captain and icon Sachin Tendulkar. Their annihilation of Kolkata Knight Riders on Friday and the ease with which they dismantled Chennai Super Kings in the match before that are ominous signs of a well-oiled machine hitting full throttle.

Deccan are yet to win a game at home and, languishing one spot above the bottom of the table, have seen the wheels come off their campaign. None of their bowlers has been able to provide early breakthroughs and the batting has been over-reliant on Gilchrist and Rohit Sharma. The big names - especially Herschelle Gibbs and Shahid Afridi - have flattered to deceive.

Tournament position
Deccan Chargers: P10, W2, L8, NRR -0.380
Mumbai Indians: P9, W5, L4, NRR +0.658

Form (last five matches, most recent first)
Deccan Chargers: LLLWL
Mumbai Indians: WWWWW

Watch out for ...
# The equivalent of an Olympic 100 metres final with Sanath Jayasuriya, Adam Gilchrist, Shahid Afridi, Herschelle Gibbs and Sachin Tendulkar getting ready to dash off the blocks.

# Shaun Pollock will be the biggest hurdle for Hyderabad's top order to clear before aspiring for a podium finish.

# Rohit Sharma. Why Mumbai never picked him remains a point of debate and it will interesting to see if he feels he has a point to prove.

# This is Dwayne Bravo's last game for Mumbai before he joins the West Indies squad for the Australia Tests and he'd surely like to leave on a winning note.

Team news
Gilchrist indicated there won't be any changes from the team that played against the Delhi Daredevils two days back.

Deccan Chargers (probable): 1 Adam Gilchrist (capt & wk), 2 Shahid Afridi, 3 Herschelle Gibbs, 4 Rohit Sharma, 5 Venugopal Rao, 6 Ravi Teja, 7 Scott Styris, 8 PM Sarvesh Kumar, 9 Pragyan Ojha, 10 RP Singh, 11 P Vijaykumar.

Why change a winning combination, Mumbai might think. Considering three big games coming up they might like to rest the young medium-pacer Dhawal Kulkarni, who is recovering from an ankle injury picked during the match against the Chennai Super Kings earlier in the week.

Mumbai Indians (probable): 1 Sachin Tendulkar (capt), 2 Sanath Jayasuriya, 3 Robin Uthappa, 4 Dominic Thornely, 5 Dwayne Bravo, 6 Shaun Pollock, 7 Abhishek Nayar, 8 Yogesh Takawale (wk), 9 Rajesh Pawar, 10 Rohan Raje, 11 Ashish Nehra.

Stats and trivia
#

# With 18 sixes, Sanath Jayasuriya currently has hit the most number of maximums, one more than David Hussey's 17.

# Scott Styris has only managed 91 runs in six innings for Deccan, but more perplexing is that the runs have come at a woeful strike-rate of 90.09.

# Deccan are the only team yet to win at home.

Quotes
"Rohit Sharma is a genuinely talented batsman. He is a very confident player and has his own style of play. The time I spent in Australia, batting with him [in the first CB Series final], was one of the longest innings I've played and I could see he was very calm, which is very important for a batsman."
Sachin Tendulkar praises a fellow Mumbaikar who happens to be Deccan's leading run-scorer.

"We are already thinking about next year."
Adam Gilchrist sums up the feelings in the Deccan camp.