Mumbai Indians will continue their search for an elusive win in the eighth edition of the Indian Premier League when they travel to face Royal Challengers Bangalore in their fifth game of the season.

The IPL juggernaut starts getting to a team if it starts a losing spree. With no time to recover, Mumbai Indians will have to hope that all the plans that are put in place are executed to the tee, both in the batting and the bowling departments.

During the first four games, the batting unit has stuttered, but have staged rescue acts. It has resulted in Mumbai Indians putting up sizeable totals on the board. During their season-opener against Kolkata Knight Riders, Mumbai Indians recovered from 37 for three in the sixth over to put on 168 runs on the board. Then at Wankhede, they were 59 for 6 against Kings XI in the 14th over, in the hunt for a target of 178 but staged a great recovery to add 100 runs in the last six overs.

Against Rajasthan Royals, MI had been reeling at 45 for 3 in the 10th over, but staged another fightback in the second half to put on 164 runs on the board. The trend of slow starts, and great recovery continued on Friday night as Mumbai Indians posted a total of 183 for 7 after losing four wickets for 57 runs in the 10th over against Chennai Super Kings.

As a result, Kieron Pollard and Rohit Sharma, with a tally of 154 and 148 runs from four innings respectively, occupy the second and the fourth positions in the list of highest run-getters. While Pollard is just one run behind Orange Cap holder Ajinkya Rahane, Rohit is also within touching distance. With Corey Anderson also having played two remarkable knocks and Harbhajan Singh continuing his silken touch with the bat; the batting unit looks good despite not having found the ideal line-up.

The bigger concern is in the bowling department. After the first 12 league games of the season, Mumbai Indians’ bowling unit has been the most expensive attack. They have a combined economy rate of 9.36, higher than any other team. Not only have the Mumbai Indians bowlers not succeeded in tying the opposition batsmen down but, have also been unable to pick wickets. In the first four matches, they have collectively picked 15 wickets, something that is not really associated with MI bowling attack.

The bowlers would be hoping to come good against the most challenging batting units in the IPL. In Chris Gayle, AB de Villiers and Virat Kohli, Royal Challengers have a destructive batting line-up. Lasith Malinga and Harbhajan would be hoping to crack the whip on them when, the team needs them to rise to the occasion the most.

The Mumbai Indians’ never-say-die spirit, has come to the fore time and again during their commendable sojourn in IPL’s first seven seasons. It is time for the Paltan to continue to show faith in its stars and hope for the turnaround to begin at the Chinnaswamy Stadium on Sunday night!

Come on, Mumbai Indians!