Mumbai Indians may have lost their first match in the IPL 2021 to Royal Challengers Bangalore, but they face a problem of plenty. Their regular opener Quinton de Kock, who had to sit out of the tournament opener against Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) as he was serving his quarantine on arrival from South Africa, was back at training on Sunday and will feature in the second match against Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) on Tuesday.
It means that Chris Lynn, who was MI's top-scorer in the loss against RCB on April 9, may have to warm the bench as the Proteas wicketkeeper-batsman will likely face the new ball with skipper Rohit Sharma.
"Quinton de Kock is out of his quarantine. He did a practice session yesterday (on Sunday) with the team looking forward to the season. Yes, he will be available for tomorrow's game," said MI director of cricketing operations, Zaheer Khan.
"It is a good headache to have. To be lucky and be fortunate to have such a squad where people are waiting for opportunities and pushing each other," Zaheer added.
MI's power-packed middle and lower batting failed against some inspired and intelligent bowling from Harshal Patel. But their power-hitting unit comprising the Pandya brothers and Kieron Pollard among others batting are too good to fail as a whole twice in a row.
Containing them will be a big challenge for Kolkata Knight Riders who on Sunday scored a close but impressive win over SunRisers Hyderabad.
With their spin bowlers, who they relied on last season, not proving effective in Sunday's game, MI's batting could worry Eoin Morgan's side.
Pat Cummins, who came in as second change, will again hold the key for the KKR bowling unit.
An interesting contest will be between Nitish Rana, who top-scored for KKR with 80 (off 56 balls) against SunRisers' strong bowling unit, and Jasprit Bumrah and Trent Boult.
While Boult is accurate, Bumrah's pace and bounce can be hot to handle.
KKR will also like their new purchase, the seasoned Harbhajan Singh, to bowl more than one over unlike in the first match against Sunrisers.
Squads:
KKR: Shubman Gill, Nitish Rana, Tim Seifert (wicketkeeper), Rahul Tripathi, Rinku Singh, Dinesh Karthik (wicketkeeper), Eoin Morgan (captain), Andre Russell, Sunil Narine, Varun CV, Kuldeep Yadav, Pat Cummins, Lockie Ferguson, Kamlesh Nagarkoti, Shivam Mavi, Sandeep Warrier, Prasidh Krishna, Shakib Al Hasan, Sheldon Jackson, Vaibhav Arora, Karun Nair, Harbhajan Singh, Ben Cutting, Venkatesh Iyer, Pawan Negi.
Mumbai Indians: Rohit Sharma (captain), Adam Milne, Aditya Tare, Anmolpreet Singh, Anukul Roy, Arjun Tendulkar, Chris Lynn, Dhawal Kulkarni, Hardik Pandya, Ishan Kishan (wicketkeeper), James Neesham, Jasprit Bumrah, Jayant Yadav, Kieron Pollard, Krunal Pandya, Marco Jansen, Mohsin Khan, Nathan Coulter-Nile, Piyush Chawla, Quinton De Kock (wicketkeeper), Rahul Chahar, Saurabh Tiwary, Suryakumar Yadav, Trent Boult, Yudhvir Singh.