IPL 6: RCB Vs MI - Can ‘King Size’ spending enthral Indian fans
While Mumbai Indians boast of the best IPL bowler in Lasith Malinga, Royal Challengers boast of destructor-in-chief Chris Gayle. (Getty Images)
If there were a trophy awarded to underachievers, the Mumbai Indians would be right up there along with the Royal Challengers Bangalore, competing for it. The Delhi Daredevils might give them a run for their money, pun intended. However, if there were an Return on Investments calculated on wins per money spent, the big splurging Mumbai and Bangalore would tussle for the wooden spoon.
The decibel levels at Chinnaswamy will explode on Thursday, when some of the game’s biggest names will assemble on the same turf. The mere prospect of watching Sachin Tendulkar, Ricky Ponting, AB de Villiers, Chris Gayle, Lasith Malinga and Virat Kohli is mouth-watering enough. That these teams will be trying to take off on a positive note will be obvious; what makes it a contest to watch out for is the new look.
Mumbai Indians – Probably the best Indian 7
There is a reason why Mumbai can deservedly call their team ‘Indians’. Almost every coach and every player has maintained that the overseas players cancel each other out and the strength of the Indian contingent is what determines the ebbs and flow of fortunes during the season. In that regard, the Mumbai Indians are as good as they come. The most likely ones to take the park will be Tendulkar, Rohit Sharma, Ambati Rayudu, Dinesh Kartik, Harbhajan Singh, Munaf Patel and Abu Nechim.Given, that Chinnaswamy helps seamers, Nechim might play ahead of Pragyan Ojha. Mumbai may spring a surprise by going for young all-rounder Rishi Dhawan, who has impressive domestic stats to back his ability. Nevertheless, John Wright might not want to take a risk with inexperience so early in the tournament.
Bangalore will most likely go for Mayank Agarwal, Kohli, Zaheer Khan, Vinay Kumar, Saurabh Tiwary, Unadkat and Abhimanyu Mithun, with Aravind likely to sit out because of an injury. Mumbai are definitely ahead in terms of the Indian contingent.
|
Mumbai Indians |
Royal Challengers Bangalore |
| Sachin Tendulkar | Virat Kohli |
| Rohit Sharma | Mayank Aggarwar |
| Ambati Rayudu | Saurabh Tiwary |
| Dinesh Kartik | Murali Kartik |
| Harbhajan Singh | Zaheer Khan |
| Pragyan Ojha | Vinay Kumar |
| Munaf Patel | Abhimanyu Mithun |
| Abu Nechim | Unadkat/Appanna |
Overseas Players – titans of the game
While Mumbai Indians boast of the best IPL bowler in Lasith Malinga, Royal Challengers boast of destructor-in-chief, the carnage specialist, Chris Gayle. That new ball contest would be a delight even for gods. As if Gayle at the top doesn’t sound ominous enough, RCB also have Tillakaratne Dilshan partnering him. de Villiers at No.4 is probably the second best T20 batsman after Gayle and the best across all formats, going around at this moment. It could be a tight pick between Dan Christian and Daniel Vettori, who is recovering from prolonged injury. If you compare Malinga-Pollard-Dwayne-Ponting with Gayle-Dilshan-AB-Vettori, RCB might have a slight upper hand. Nevertheless, it is not huge enough to undermine the Indian bench strength of Mumbai.
|
Mumbai Indians |
Royal Challengers Bangalore |
| Keiron Pollard | Chris Gayle |
| Lasith Malinga | Dilshan Tillakaratne |
| Ricky Ponting | Daniel Vettori |
| Dwayne Smith | DanielChristian/Moises Henriques/M. Muralitharan |
| James Franklin/Maxwell/Phil Hughes/Aiden Blizzard | AB de Villiers |
A Classy Leadership team for Mumbai
Both teams have a new captain, which makes the battle even more interesting. Virat Kohli, has pretty much been the face of RCB for a while now, and has finally been handed over the reins. He is in the good books of Ray Jennings and was always touted as the next captain, both for RCB and India. He would be pitted with a legend himself, Ricky Ponting who has more Test wins that any player in history, apart from a trophy cabinet with two world cups. Whether Ponting would be as effective in the shorter format is a question on everyone’s mind. It could come down to a pick between Ponting’s experience and Virat’s refreshing aggression. I would back Ponting to pull it through for Mumbai in situations that demand nerves of steel.
Mumbai Indians have a slight edge as far as their leadership team is concerned. Jennings has done well for RCB but Wright comes with a wealth of international experience, not to mention his understanding of the Indian players and conditions. He coached India from 2000 – 2005 during which time, India reached the 2003 WC final and drew a series down under. What makes it even classier is the inclusion of Anil Kumble as chief mentor. Coincidentally, it was at RCB where Anil was first made a mentor, following his retirement from all forms of cricket.
Mumbai boasts of the best wicket tally in IPL along with the best economy and bowling average, largely because of Malinga (Getty Images)
The Past
Both teams started slowly in the initial editions of IPL but then picked up speed to challenge Chennai, the most dominant IPL team. Mumbai boasts of the best wicket tally in IPL along with the best economy and bowling average, largely because of Malinga, IPL’s most successful bowler. RCB lead the charts when it comes to boundary percentage, with a huge contribution from Gayle. They made it to the finals twice and yet don’t have any silverware to boast of. Mumbai Indians under Harbhajan Singh have won the Champions Trophy and have made it to the playoffs the last three times, falling once in the finals to the might of Chennai. While the Indians would want to show their owners that the big spending is worth it, RCB would dearly like to give Vijay Mallya something to cheer after a disastrous year outside cricket.
Conditions
The pitch at Bangalore has pace and helps seamers. Royal Challengers shopped quite a bit for pacers in the off season. With deafening home support, RCB has the edge. With a stable opening pair, unlike Mumbai, RCB are better equipped to handle the high quality pace from Malinga. Much will also depend on how well Zaheer and Vinay, coming back after a while, perform and how long they take to hit the straps. It will be interesting to see if RCB pick Ravi Rampaul ahead of Vettori to strengthen their pace bowling.
The Gong
As the game goes underway, two of the most widely and wildly followed IPL teams would hope they set the record right straightaway. It might also be Sachin’s last IPL, but who is to say. Whichever way, the result goes, one thing is for certain – they will be dancing in the aisles. Underachieving like losing and winning is a habit too, a habit, two behemoths of IPL with legendary players would want to get out of.