Finding themselves at the top half of the table will be comforting for the Mumbai Indians, who after an inconsistent run at the start of the season, are settling down nicely and at present have four wins out of eight games. They will be hoping to take the momentum forward when they face off against Rising Pune Supergiants in their return leg of the Maharashtra derby on Sunday. The game will also mark the end of the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2016 matches in Maharashtra.

The hosts, Supergiants, meanwhile, are yet to set the tournament alight, with injuries to key players and poor form of the bowlers, contributing to the position they find themselves in currently. With two wins out of seven games, Supergiants are languishing at the bottom half of the table, and unless they hit the straps soon, they might find it too hard to catch up.

There is not much to fault when it comes to Supergiants’s batting as the likes of Ajinkya Rahane, Steven Smith and MS Dhoni have been in good touch and have made up for the absence of Kevin Pietersen and Faf du Plessis. However, the bowlers haven’t complemented the fine batting efforts, which has meant that Smith’s maiden Twenty20 ton against Gujarat Lions and three of Rahane’s four half centuries have come in losing causes. The fact that Supergiants haven’t been able to find a settled bowling line up has been hurting them for a few games now, and as Dhoni said, they ‘need to crack the code quickly, else we will be on the receiving end’ more times than not.

On the other hand, Mumbai Indians are now looking much more relaxed than they were at the start of the season, having hit upon the right combination. Rohit Sharma has been in good form, while Kieron Pollard’s blistering knocks in the last few games come as a big boost. Jos Buttler is another key member but he hasn’t quite made an impact yet, and Mumbai Indians will be hoping that he converts those promising starts to bigger scores. The bowlers too have mostly been on the mark and will be keen to continue in the same vein.

Teams:

Mumbai Indians (From): Rohit Sharma(c), Parthiv Patel(w), Ambati Rayudu, Jos Buttler, Kieron Pollard, Krunal Pandya, Hardik Pandya, Harbhajan Singh, Tim Southee, Mitchell McClenaghan, Jasprit Bumrah, Jerome Taylor, Corey Anderson, Akshay Wakhare, Shreyas Gopal, Vinay Kumar, Marchant de Lange, Siddhesh Lad, Unmukt Chand, Suchith, Nitish Rana, Jitesh Sharma, Deepak Punia, Nathu Singh, Kishore Kamath, Martin Guptill

Rising Pune Supergiants (From): Ajinkya Rahane, Saurabh Tiwary, Steven Smith, MS Dhoni(w/c), Thisara Perera, Albie Morkel, Rajat Bhatia, Peter Handscomb, Ravichandran Ashwin, Murugan Ashwin, Ashok Dinda, Usman Khawaja, Irfan Pathan, Ishant Sharma, Mitchell Marsh, RP Singh, Jaskaran Singh, Adam Zampa, Ankit Sharma, Scott Boland, Ishwar Pandey, Deepak Chahar, Baba Aparajith, Ankush Bains