Can MI ruin KKR’s ride?

Fivetime champions Mumbai Indians who are already out of contention for the playoffs take on Kolkata Knight Riders who are hanging on to the slimmest hopes of making it to the last four at the DY Patil Stadium here on MondayWhen they last met at Punersquos Maharashtra Cricket Association Stadium KKR had inflicted a fivewicket defeatmdashone of an unprecedented eight suffered by MI at the start of their dismal runMI placed 10th and last currently with just four points have notched up two straight wins after their eight defeatsKKR have spiralled downwards after a promising start suffering four defeats in their last five matchesMustwin situationWith just eight points from 10 matches KKR need to win all their remaining matches and hope that other results go their way to make it to the playoffsDew will be a significant factor as it has been for almost all evening games at the DY Patil Stadium and winning the toss will be crucialBoth teams have suffered from a lack of good openings in the Powerplay However MI openers Rohit Sharma the skipper and wicketkeeper Ishan Kishan put on 74 in their last match which they won by five runs against toppers Gujarat Titans The victory along with the return to some sort of form by Rohit and Kishan both of whom scored individual forties is an encouraging sign for MIDaniel Sams the seamer who helped MI beat Gujarat by defending nine runs in the final over said that MI were keen to finish on a high ldquoObviously wersquore not going to make the playoffs but how we set up the rest of the tournament for us is that wersquove got a mini IPL goingrdquo Sams saidldquoSo the last six gamesmdashwersquove played two of them alreadymdashwersquore judging ourselves on that We canrsquot make the playoffs but we can still build on a lot of things for the coming seasonrdquo he explainedMI have suffered from the loss of form of their pace spearhead Jasprit Bumrah who has taken just five wickets so far and conceded 48 runs against the TitansIn batting too MI have been underwhelmed by the poor form of Rohit who has averaged just under 20 runs per game Kishan 30 and Kieron Pollard under 15Suryakumar Yadav averaging just under 44 303 runs from eight matches and newcomer Tilak Varma averaging 41 with an aggregate of 328 have been MIrsquos bulwarks in the batting departmentBatting woesKKR too have had their batting woes Their batting Powerplay has been below par as conceded by head coach Brendon McCullum recently ldquoWe struggled in the Powerplay which has been a frustration for us throughout the seasonrdquo McCullum saidBigbuilt West Indian Andre Russell has been the player of the season for KKR both with the bat 272 runs in 11 matches with a plethora of sixes and the ball 12 wicketsAnother West Indian Sunil Narine has performed well with the ball but has not been effective with the bat like in previous seasons The individual matchup between the two bigmade West Indians Pollard and Russell is also bound to excite spectators Captain Shreyas Iyer has scored the maximum runs 330 for KKR although he has displayed some vulnerability against the short ball