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Steve Smith's Rajasthan Royals have run hot and cold in this IPL 2020. After beating Chennai Super Kings by seven wickets on October 19, RR crashed to an eight-wicket loss versus Sunrisers Hyderabad in their last game on October 22. This inconsistency has hurt the team's campaign and the Royals, eight points from 11 matches, can ill afford another poor show against defending champions Mumbai Indians in Abu Dhabi on Sunday. MI are on a high after a 10-wicket win against Chennai Super Kings on Friday and a win vs RR will almost certainly give them a spot in the IPL playoffs. Mumbai have 14 points from 10 matches and have the healthiest run-rate in IPL 2020. Get live cricket scores of RR vs MI here. (LIVE SCORECARD | POINTS TABLE | FULL SCHEDULE)
7:10 PM IST: Here are the playing XIs -
Rajasthan Royals: Robin Uthappa, Ben Stokes, Sanju Samson (wk), Jos Buttler, Steven Smith (c), Riyan Parag, Rahul Tewatia, Jofra Archer, Shreyas Gopal, Ankit Rajpoot, Kartik Tyagi
Mumbai Indians: Quinton de Kock (wk), Ishan Kishan, Suryakumar Yadav, Saurabh Tiwary, Hardik Pandya, Kieron Pollard (c), Krunal Pandya, James Pattinson, Rahul Chahar, Trent Boult, Jasprit Bumrah.
7:04 PM IST: Rohit Sharma still unfit. Keiron Pollard won the toss and opted to bat first against unchanged Rajasthan Royals.
6:56 PM IST: Toss in Abu Dhabi coming up. Mumbai Indians defeated Chennai Super Kings in their previous outing even without Rohit Sharma, while Rajasthan Royals lost to Sunrisers Hyderabad by seven wickets.
6:52 PM IST: First match of the day just got over. Chennai Super Kings humbled Royal Challengers Bangalore. Catch highlights here.
PREVIEW
Mumbai Indians were without an injured Rohit Sharma in their last game against CSK. Kieron Pollard led a team that has looked complete in all aspects. Trent Boult and Jasprit Bumrah polished off the CSK top order and a reckless MS Dhoni gifted his wicket to leg-spinner Rahul Chahar. Then opener Ishan Kishan and Quinton de Kock made shortwork of a 115-run target and MI won with more than seven overs to spare.
It remains to be seen how MI batsmen handle the lethal pace of Jofra Archer. In the first-leg clash between RR and MI, Archer took 1 for 34 in his four overs as Mumbai won by a whopping 57 runs. The England pacer's ability to move the ball with pace makes him one of the most difficult bowlers to face even on sluggish pitches in the UAE.
Sunday's clash will be a match between RR's top order batsmen and MI's well-rounded bowling attack. RR coach Andrew McDonald is still not sure how his team, mainly the batsmen, will turn up against Mumbai Indians.
"It’s hard for us to really identify one area where we went wrong. Clearly, we haven't been at our best consistently and ultimately that's what it's about in these tournaments. It's such an even tournament and the challenge is to bring your best out in every game and unfortunately, through the course of the tournament, we haven't done that and have allowed teams to come back in games we probably should've won. Our destiny is probably in other teams' hands now and as for us we need to keep believing, our challenge is seven wins and we'll try to give our best to achieve that," said McDonald.
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