KL Rahul averages 94.5 in the nine innings he has played against Mumbai Indians since 2018, including three not outs and three scores in excess of 90. His sequence against them reads 24, 94, 71, 100, 17, 77, 60, 21, 103*, with the last one coming in the Lucknow Super Giants colours just a few days back. With his love for scoring big against Mumbai Indians, and going up against a team that has been battered, bruised and almost on the verge of exit, Rahul and Co. will be looking to take maximum advantage.
Rahul is currently the third highest run-getter in IPL 2022, behind Jos Buttler and Hardik Pandya. But it has been a slightly up and down journey so far for the LSG skipper, who apart from his century against MI and a 68 against Sunrisers Hyderabad, has also been dismissed for a couple of golden ducks against Gujarat Titans and Rajasthan Royals and has registered middling scores of 40 and 30 against Chennai Super Kings and Royal Challengers Bangalore respectively. It has been a similar journey for LSG, who have two losses out of their last three games, which followed a hat-trick of victories. Their last two losses came while chasing, and in both games they haven't had the best of starts with the bat, which will be something that LSG will be hoping to address quickly.
Mumbai have had their worst IPL start, being the only team to start an IPL season with seven successive losses. Be it the failure of the top order, the inability of the middle order to close out games, the bowlers not quite up to the mark or that their overseas names haven't really made much of an impact, it has been a collective no-show from the Mumbai Indians. There have been some promising performances, with Suryakumar Yadav and Tilak Varma leading the way, while Hrithik Shokeen impressed in his debut game against CSK. But the negatives have far outweighed the positives and Mumbai will be hoping they stem the rot soon. It may be a bit too late, considering that in past IPL competitions in which more than eight teams have played, no team has qualified with 14 points - which is the maximum MI can
get from now.
Lucknow Probable XI:
KL Rahul (c), Quinton de Kock (wk), Manish Pandey, Marcus Stoinis, Deepak Hooda, Ayush Badoni, Krunal Pandya, Jason Holder, Dushmantha Chameera, Avesh Khan, Ravi Bishnoi
Mumbai Probable XI:
Rohit Sharma (c), Ishan Kishan (wk), Dewald Brevis, Suryakumar Yadav, Tilak Varma, Kieron Pollard, Daniel Sams, M Ashwin/Hrithik Shokeen, Riley Meredith, Jaydev Unadkat, Jasprit Bumrah