Mumbai Indians Look For Last Roll Of The Dice In Its Favour For IPL Playoffs

On the face of it, Mumbai Indians may appear to have cooked its own goose to position itself for its sixth IPL crown. After a bungling start in the Tata IPL-16 against Royal Challengers Bangalore and Chennai Super Kings, MI made amends by winning, moved to the No 3 position in the leader board and looked set for a the playoffs. Its  famous plans of starting this season’s power play with Jasprit Bumrah and Jofra Archer did not happen, stricken as they were with back and elbow injuries. It’s batting clicked to an extent, though skipper Rohit Sharma’s shots misfired in five outings in a row; however the team showed its mettle to raise genuine hopes to stay put in the top 4. But leaking 54 runs in the last three overs against the Lucknow Super Giants threw the spanner in the works for it to make headway. And on Thursday, RCB’s Virat Kohli and Faf du Plessis dislodged MI from the top 4 with a superior net run rate. On Sunday- the last day of the league stage– both MI and RCB will know what they have to do vis-a-vis the playoffs. All is not lost yet for MI. CSK (15 points) and LSG (15 points) have the advantage, but should one of it lose on Saturday, MI will press for a win against the Sunrisers Hyderabad on Sunday to enter the playoffs. Ditto with the RCB against the Gujarat Titans