Last two seasons, we have been in neck-to-neck contests with the side from the northern part of India, Kings XI Punjab. Neither of the two teams managed to win their home games last season. Both the home and away matches were heavenly for batsmen from both teams. The first match was held in Indore where they challenged us with the mountainous, 198 runs, which we managed to scale down in just 15.3 overs. Hashim Amla’s century was put to waste by Jos Buttler and Nitish Rana’s heroics. In the home fixture, KXIP amassed 230 runs, of which we fell short by just 7 runs. This year, these two teams will lock horns for the 21^st time on 4^th May at Mohali, with both teams having 10 victories each to their name. The second fixture will be played at our home, Wankhede Stadium, on 16^th May, which happens to be our last home game of the league stage.

KXIP were one of the busiest teams in this season’s auction as they traded in a few big names. With the inclusion of Aaron Finch, Chris Gayle and David Miller’s retention via a Right-to-match card, the run-rate would be always on the rise, more often than not. Manoj Tiwary, Karun Nair and Mayank Agarwal form a strong contingent of talented Indian batsmen at KXIP’s disposal. Ravichandran Ashwin and Andrew Tye strengthen their bowling unit as these proven wicket-takers are exceptional in this format. The only retained player before the auction, all-rounder, Axar Patel will look to repay the faith shown in by the management.

Yuvraj Singh has returned to the side where he began his IPL journey. Along with Marcus Stoinis, their all-round performance can be extremely crucial in climbing up the table throughout the season. Their head coach, Brad Hodge, will leave no stone unturned in preparing against us.

Mahela Jayawardene’s tactics and strategies might look to focus on winning small battles within the match, which eventually has an impact on the result of the entire match. Our experienced and proven batsmen will try to create trouble for their uncapped bowlers, while it will also be interesting to see the face-off between the experienced players, Ravichandran Ashwin and Rohit Sharma. MI vs KXIP has been high-scoring and won’t be short of entertaining, with the caliber of players on both sides. Our team, along with our Paltan, will be pumped up to face the challenge.