Struggling sides Mumbai Indians (MI) and Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB), sixth and seventh in the points table, will fight for survival at the M Chinnaswamy Stadium on Tuesday.

After the win against Chennai Super Kings, MI will be confident to take on the strong batting line-up of RCB, which has the likes of Virat Kohli and Brendon McCllum.

On the other hand, the heartbreaking back-to-back defeats to CSK and Kolkata Knight Riders at home would have devastated RCB’s confidence. They will have to play out of their skins to stay alive in the competition.

Whichever team loses on Tuesday night will find it difficult, almost impossible, to enter the play-offs.

MI’s batting worries

Mumbai would like to take a cue from their last encounter against RCB, which they had won by 46 runs at the Wankhede Sadium with Rohit Sharma and Evin Lewis hitting 94 and 65 respectively.

Barring Suryakumar Yadav, who has 274 runs under his belt in seven matches as an opener, most of the Mumbai batsmen have been inconsistent. Captain Rohit, who has failed to get past 20 runs in five games, will try to play yet another impactful innings.

The team would like Rohit, who has scored 196 runs in seven matches, to bat either one-down as he did in the last game or open the innings.

The Pandya brothers – Hardik and Krunal – have picked up eight wickets each but have aggregated just 61 and 113 runs, respectively, so far in the tournament. Mumbai would want them to up their games as well.

Onus on de Villiers, Kohli

On the other hand, RCB are struggling at seventh position after two wins and five defeats.

RCB would be praying for the return of AB de Villiers, who did not play the last game due to illness. The South African star has been in prime form this season, smashing 68 off 30 balls against CSK and single-handedly defeating Delhi Daredevils with his unbeaten 39-ball 90.

Kohli would be keen to produce another special knock in this crunch situation, especially after getting two unbeaten knocks of 92 and 68 against Mumbai and KKR, respectively.

Head to head

Overall: Matches – 22, Royal Challengers Bangalore won – 8, Mumbai Indians won – 14

At the Wankhede Stadium: Matches – 8, Royal Challengers Bangalore won – 1, Mumbai Indians won – 7

Squads

Mumbai Indians: Rohit Sharma (Captain), Jasprit Bumrah, Hardik Pandya, Kieron Pollard, Mustifizur Rahman, Adam Milne, Suryakumar Yadav, Krunal Pandya, Ishan Kishan, Rahul Chahar, Evin Lewis, Saurabh Tiwary, Ben Cutting, Pradeep Sangwan, JP Duminy, Tajinder Singh, Sharad Lumba, Siddhesh Lad, Aditya Tare, Mayank Markande Akila Dhanajaya, Anukul Roy, Mohsin Khan, MD Nidheesh and Mitchell McClenaghan.

Royal Challengers Bangalore: Virat Kohli (Captain), Quinton de Kock, Brendon McCullum, AB de Villiers, Sarfaraz Khan, Mandeep Singh, Chris Woakes, Washington Sundar, Umesh Yadav, Yuzvendra Chahal, Colin de Grandhomme, Moeen Ali, Pawan Negi, Mohammed Siraj, Corey Anderson, Parthiv Patel, Tim Southee.

Key stats

  • MI and RCB are the two most successful bowling sides. From all their matches in the eleven seasons so far, MI have taken a total of 1000 wickets – the only team to touch the four-figure mark, while RCB are a distant second with a tally of 918 wickets.
  • This is already Suryakumar Yadav’s most successful season in IPL; he has an aggregate of 274 runs in 7 innings so far. His previous best season aggregate was 182 runs (2016).
  • The average first innings total in the IPL 2018 matches in Bengaluru is 185; the team chasing has won 4 of these matches.    

(With inputs from PTI and iplt20.com)