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Mumbai: Upbeat after their comprehensive 60-run victory over table-toppers Chennai Super Kings, Mumbai Indians will be eager to further brighten their play-off prospects with yet another win, over holders Kolkata Knight Riders in their IPL game on Tuesday.
Mumbai's fifth victory in as many games at the Wankhede Stadium, which has proved to be an insurmountable hurdle for visiting teams this season, boosted their points tally to 14 ahead of their 12th round match against the Knight Riders who are languishing in the bottom half of the table with 8 points from 11 matches.
The visitors' hope of making it to the knock-out phase is hanging by a thread and the head to head record against Mumbai - 2 wins against 9 losses - is also not inspiring.
But the defending champions can take heart from the fact that when the two teams met here last year, it was Kolkata who emerged victorious.
Post-match there was a ruckus between KKR's joint owner Shah Rukh Khan and the Mumbai Cricket Association officials that led to the association imposing a five-year ban on the Bollywood actor from entering the ground.
The Knight Riders' top-order batting has waxed and waned in IPL 6. None signifies this aspect better than captain Gambhir who started off with three half-centuries in their first four games and has since struggled to get going.
Though Gambhir is still the top scorer for his side with 320 runs, his poor run with the bat after the great beginning has put pressure on the latter order batsmen. Even the ever-dependable Jacques Kallis (219 runs) has not been consistent.
Big-hitting Eoin Morgan has been the main prop in the middle with 278 runs at just over 34 per innings.
Mumbai's batting has not exploded in all its glory so far, with senior batsman Sachin Tendulkar failing to converting his starts into big scores.
He has been partnered by West Indian Dwayne Smith at the top ever since Ricky Ponting decided to opt out from the playing XI, leaving the captaincy to Rohit Sharma who has been the fulcrum of the batting along with Dinesh Karthik.
With Harbhajan Singh choking up the runs and also taking wickets with Pragyan Ojha in the middle overs, Mumbai's bowling at their home ground has been pretty impressive.
Teams from:
Mumbai Indians: Ricky Ponting (Capt.), Abu Nechim Ahmed, Akshar Patel, Aditya Tare (wk), Aiden Blizzard, Ambati Rayudu, Amitoze Singh, Dhawal Kulkarni, Dinesh Karthik (wk), Dwayne Smith, Glenn Maxwell, Harbhajan Singh, Jacob Oram, Jalaj Saxena, James Franklin, Kieron Pollard, Lasith Malinga, Mitchell Johnson, Munaf Patel, Nathan Coulter-Nile, Phil Hughes, Pawan Suyal, Pragyan Ojha, Rishi Dhawan, Rohit Sharma, Sachin Tendulkar, Suryakumar Yadav, Sushant Marathe, Yuzvendra Singh Chahal.
Kolkata Knight Riders: Gautam Gambhir (Capt.), Manvinder Bisla (wk), Yusuf Pathan, Jacques Kallis, Rajat Bhatia, Laxmipathy Balaji, Sarabjit Ladda, Brad Haddin (wk), Debabrata Das, Iqbal Abdulla, Brett Lee, Ryan McLaren, Eoin Morgan, Sunil Narine, Sumit Narwal, Suchitra Senanayake, Pradeep Sangwan, Shami Ahmed, Shakib Al Hasan, Laxmi Ratan Shukla, Ryan ten Doeschate, Manoj Tiwary, James Pattinson.
Match facts
Tuesday May 7, 2013 (day/night)
Start time 20:00 local (1430 GMT)
