Mumbai Indians, captained by Rohit Sharma, will begin defending the Indian Premier League (IPL) title against Virat Kohli-led Royal Challengers Bangalore in Chennai on Friday. The match is expected to be a tremendous competition as both teams have the best Twenty20 players around the world in their setup. Although the defending champions did not tamper much with their core in player auctions, RCB invested heavily in overseas all-rounders for the upcoming season, playing alongside Glenn Maxwell and Kyle Jamieson. Ever since Rohit took over the reins of the Mumbai franchise, he has been the defending team in the IPL.
Rohit took over the reins from Ricky Ponting during the 2013 season and in the same year, he led Mumbai to their first IPL title.
He became the most successful leader in tournament history after winning four more titles over the next seven years.
Bazigar of Mumbai Indians beat every other team in the 13th edition of IPL as they won their fifth title.
Mumbai are ready to defend their title, so they have the chance to be the only team in the IPL to win three titles.
RCB, who rely heavily on their batting, will hope to make their season debut with a win against formidable teams like Mumbai Indians.
Despite some of the game’s greats in its repertoire, RCB are yet to get their hands on the IPL trophy.
The Virat Kohli-led team has been a part of the three finals of the IPL but has failed on all three occasions.
Last year, Kohli moved RCB to the playoffs, but lost to the Sunrisers Hyderabad in the eliminator.
Due to the ongoing coronavirus epidemic, no team will play any game in this year’s IPL at their home ground.
All matches will be played in six venues – Chennai, Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkata, Bangalore and Ahmedabad.
Squad:
Mumbai Indians: Rohit Sharma (c), Quinton de Kock, Suryakumar Yadav, Chris Lynn, Ishan Kishan, Aditya Tare, Anukul Roy, Anmolpreet Singh, Saurabh Tiwari, Kieron Pollard, Hardik Pandya, Krunal Pandya, Jimmy Neesham, Arjun Tendulkar, Marco Joker Chawla, Jayant Yadav, Rahul Chahar, Trent Boult, Jasprit Bumrah, Adam Milne, Nathan Kuppter Nile, Mohsin Khan, Yudhveer Singh.
Promoted
Royal Challengers Bangalore: Virat Kohli (C), Devadatta Padikkal, AB de Villiers, Sachin Baby, Glenn Maxwell, Kyle Jamieson, Washington Sundar, Daniel Christian, Daniel Sams, Pawan Deshpande, Shahbaz Ahmed, Rajat Patidar, Suyyesh Prabhudesai, Mohammad Azharuddin, Finnmen Bharat, Yuzvendra Chahal, Adam Zampa, Navdeep Saini, Mohammad Siraj, Ken Richardson, Harshal Patel.
The match will start at 7.30 pm IST.
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