Lagatar24 Desk
Five-time champion Mumbai Indians will play the last league match of the 2021 season on Friday. Mumbai will face Hyderabad on October 8. For the first time in the history of IPL, two league matches will be played simultaneously. Both matches are to be played on Friday and the matches will start simultaneously at 7:30 pm.
Mumbai’s chances of making the play-offs are almost over after Kolkata’s massive 86-run win over Rajasthan on Thursday. In case Mumbai win over Hyderabad today, Mumbai will be equal to Kolkata on 14 points, but the difference in the net run rate of both the teams is so big that it is almost impossible for Mumbai to bridge it.
On the other hand, the Hyderabad team is already out of the playoff. Mumbai have to win the match by 170 runs after scoring more than 200 runs if they want to reach the play-offs. If Mumbai bats later, they will have to win the match in very few overs after restricting Hyderabad to a very low score.
Mumbai’s team could not perform well in Phase-2 of this season. They had to face defeat in 4 out of 6 matches in UAE. The players included in the team who are also going to play in the T20 World Cup can take this match as a good practice. Captain Rohit Sharma, Suryakumar Yadav, Hardik Pandya and Rahul Chahar have not been able to leave a mark in Phase 2. They would like to improve their performance before the World Cup. Jasprit Bumrah has shown a good game so far. At the same time, Ishan Kishan played a good inning in the last match.
