It’s Head v Bumrah in mumbai Tonight!

Sunrisers Hyderabad batter Travis Head during a practice session at the Wankhede Stadium yesterday. Pic/Atul Kamble

Tonight's IPL contest at the Wankhede Stadium is not between two teams that own bragging rights on the points tally. Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) are in the middle with 12 points while bottom-placed Mumbai Indians are well and truly playing a dead rubber at home. Yet, former Mumbai Indians pacer and current Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) bowling coach James Franklin termed tonight's contest as, "the best going against the best."

What Franklin meant was in-form Sunrisers opener Travis Head and MI's pace ace Jasprit Bumrah. "Those are the sort of contests that not only your team or your coaching staff, but people around the world, journalists, media, want to watch because it is the best going against the best," Franklin said in reply to mid-day's question about what he thought of the two cricket stars locking horns.

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MI's Jasprit Bumrah after taking the wicket of KKR's Mitchell Starc at the Wankhede Stadium on Friday. Pic/AFP

Bumrah is the leading wicket-taker this season with 17 from 11 games while Head has scored 396 runs in nine games, which includes one century and three half-tons. "He [Bumrah] has generally had a pretty big impact on games. I am sure it [the showdown] will be pretty exciting to watch. "Let's see what sort of tactics Mumbai go with; how they use Bumrah. I know there has been a little bit of a debate around about how he gets used [first up or at the end], but again, it doesn't really matter where he gets used," Franklin remarked.

Meanwhile, MI's batting all-rounder Naman Dhir said the hosts won't lack a full throttle effort even though they have no chance of making the Playoffs. "Every team in the IPL is competitive. So, many times, home ground advantage becomes null and void. I don't say that SRH scored 250 runs in every match, so they can do it tomorrow [Monday] also. We have a good bowling side and we will try to restrict them to a low score," remarked Dhir. Doubtless, the broad blades from both sides will be on show tonight.