Gujarat Lions will host Mumbai Indians in Match 35 of the 2017 Indian Premier League [IPL] season at the Saurashtra Cricket Association Stadium in Rajkot on Saturday.
The Lions have had an ordinary season so far, but their confidence will have surely been boosted by their convincing win over Royal Challengers Bangalore on Thursday.
On the other hand, Mumbai Indians suffered their first loss in seven matches and will hope to get back to winning ways as they look to join Kolkata Knight Riders at the top of the table.
Ahead of the match, we have the latest team news, start time and how you can follow all of the action from the UAE.
DATE, TIME, VENUE INFO
Date: April 29, 2017 (Saturday)
Time: 18:30 GST, 20:00 local time (IST), 14:30 GMT
Venue: Saurashtra Cricket Association Stadium, Rajkot
WHERE TO WATCH, LIVE STREAMING INFO
TV: UAE – OSN Sports Cricket HD, India – Sony Six, Sony Six HD (English), Sony Max, Sony Max HD 3 (Hindi), UK – Sky Sports
Online streaming: hotstar.com, Hotstar app (in India only)
LIVE: Sport360.com
TEAM NEWS, SQUADS, PREDICTED XIs
Back to the den! 🦁 #GameMaariChhe pic.twitter.com/4IiKKpsziY
GL SQUAD: Suresh Raina, Ravindra Jadeja, Dwayne Bravo, James Faulkner, Brendon McCullum, Aaron Finch, Dwayne Smith, Dinesh Karthik, Dhawal Kulkarni, Praveen Kumar, Andrew Tye, Ishan Kishan, Pradeep Sangwan, Shivil Kaushik, Shadab Jakati, Jaydev Shah, Nathu Singh, Basil Thampi, Tejas Singh Baroka, Manpreet Gony, Jason Roy, Munaf Patel, Chirag Suri, Shelly Shaurya, Shubham Agrawal, Pratham Singh, Aksh Deep Nath, Irfan Pathan, Ankit Soni.
The Lions added more muscle to their bowling by including James Faulkner as the fourth foreign player in place of Dwayne Smith and it worked well for them.
The playing XI can be expected to be more or less the same as the last game, but don’t be surprised if Gujarat decide to go with a pace-heavy bowling attack. Irfan Pathan to play his first match of IPL 2017, perhaps?
PREDICTED GL XI: McCullum, Kishan, Raina (c), Finch, Karthik (wk), Jadeja, Faulkner, Pathan, Tye, Thampi, Nathu.
There's plenty of fire in their belly! The boys aren't holding back in training tonight! 🔥#CricketMeriJaan pic.twitter.com/yY5iiO1kAM
MI SQUAD: Rohit Sharma, Kieron Pollard, Lasith Malinga, Hardik Pandya, Parthiv Patel, Harbhajan Singh, Ambati Rayudu, Jasprit Bumrah, Shreyas Gopal, Lendl Simmons, R Vinay Kumar, Mitchell McClenaghan, J Suchith, Siddhesh Lad, Jos Buttler, Nitish Rana, Tim Southee, Jitesh Sharma, Krunal Pandya, Deepak Punia, Nicholas Pooran, Mitchell Johnson, K Gowtham, Karn Sharma, Saurabh Tiwary, Asela Gunaratne, Kulwant Khejroliya.
Although Karn Sharma did well in the opportunity that he got in the last match, you can expect Krunal Pandya to return to the team if he is fit.
The Mumbai team look like a well-settled unit so it’s unlikely that they are going to tinker much with the combination of the side.
PREDICTED MI XI: Parthiv (wk), Buttler, Rana, Rohit, Pollard, Krunal, Hardik, Harbhajan, McClenaghan, Johnson, Bumrah.
FORM
(Last five matches – with latest match first)
GL: W L W L L
MI: L W W W W
MATCH PREDICTION
Mumbai seem to have the stronger line-up on paper and hence, we’re predicting a win for them.
