IPL 2021: Mumbai Indians look to 'middle' well with fresh start

Defending champions Mumbai Indians will look to sort out their middleorder woes and bring their campaign back on track when they take on an inconsistent Rajasthan Royals in an IPL game here on ThursdayMI are coming into the match after suffering backtoback losses the last one being a ninewicket defeat against Punjab Kings in Chennai and need to start the Delhi leg afreshThe Sanju Samsonled Rajasthan have lost thrice in the tournament so far and will seek to build on the sixwicket win over Kolkata Knight Riders in the previous match Mumbai skipper Rohit Sharma 201 runs has got starts but hasnrsquot played a big knock and the Mumbaikar would be itching to get one as would be his opening partner Quinton De Kock 47 runsFocus on HardikBut Mumbairsquos middleorder which boasts of hardhitting batsmen like Suryakumar Yadav 154 runs Ishan Kishan 73 runs Hardik Pandya 36 runs Krunal Pandya 29 runs and Kieron Pollard 65 runs hasnrsquot fired in unison so farThe middleorder can pummel any good attack into submission on any given day and Sharma would hope for their batting to click on Thursday when the action shifts to the Feroz Shah Kotla ground hereIn the bowling department pace duo of Trent Boult 6 wickets and Jasprit Bumrah 4 wickets have been exceptional particularly at the deathLegspinner Rahul Chahar 9 wickets and Krunal 3 wickets have also been impressive and will again need to play their parts to perfectionPollard is used as the fifth or the sixth bowler even as Hardik plays solely as a batsman Mumbai however might play Adam Milne in place of Jayant YadavRoyals hit hardRajasthan on the other hand have a lot of issues to ponder over particularly in the absence of key foreign playersmdashJofra Archer Ben Stokes Liam Livingstone and Andrew TyeRR are yet to have a settled opening combination They tried Manan Vohra 42 runs and Yashasvi Jaiswal 22 runs at the top but both failed to convert their starts Englishman Jos Buttler would need to score big to compliment his skipper Sanju Samson who is the teamrsquos leading runscorer 18736No of runs Hardik Pandya has scored in five matchesThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever