Chance for Mumbai and Chargers to regroup

Despite missing Sachin Tendulkar to injury, Mumbai Indians still look the stronger side, on paper at least, but the visitors must be aware of the fact that the Chargers` would be playing in front of their home crowd.

While The Chargers lost to defending champions Chennai Super Kings to start their campaign on a sour note on Saturday, Mumbai were done in by Ashok Dinda`s four-wicket haul when they clashed with Pune Warriors in their last match.

The last edition`s runner-up though beat Chennai in the tournament opener on April 4. However, in the absence of Tendulkar, there was little of note in the Mumbai innings against Pune, barring Dinesh Karthik`s 32 off as many balls and an identical effort from James Franklin.

While the bowlers did a creditable job in both their matches so far with Lasith Malinga, Munaf Patel, Pragyan Ojha and skipper Harbhajan Singh being the wreckers-in-chief, a much-improved performance from the batsmen is what the Mumbai oufit would be hoping for at the Dr Y S Rajasekhara Reddy ACA-VDCA Cricket Stadium.

Richard Levi, the much sought-after South African, blazed his way to a half-century against Chennai, but the likes of Rohit Sharma, Suryakumar Yadav and Keiron Pollard are yet to fire. The batting looks formidable but Mumbai will bank heavily on Levi to get them off to a flyer tomorrow.

While it would be a challenge to face countryman Dale Steyn, Levi would surely fancy his chances against the likes of Manpreet Goni, Ankit Sharma, Dan Christian and TP Sudhindra.

As far as the Chargers are concerned, true they were outclassed by Chennai in their campaign opener yesterday, but ruling a team out in this form of the game would be a folly.

One of the least fancied sides this year with some of their key men having to sit out of the tournament, the Chargers don`t have a big name as such in batting, but one always can expect players like Shikhar Dhawan, Christian, Cameron White and Daniel Harris to come up with match-winning efforts.

Steyn is undoubtedely the spearhead of the bowling department, supported by Goni, Christian and Sudhindra.