Mumbai Indians skipper Rohit Sharma won the toss and elected to field first in the highly-anticipated clash against Chennai Super Kings on Saturday at the Arun Jaitley Stadium in Delhi. Rohit said every game is an important one for the five-time champions, who are currently sitting fourth on the points table with three wins from six games.
Mumbai Indians also made two changes to their Playing XI, giving Jimmy Neesham and Dhawal Kulkarni a chance in place of Jayant Yadav and Nathan Coulter-Nile respectively.
"We will bowl first. Looks like a good pitch, will get better and better as the game progresses. We have some tactical changes, it's important to understand the conditions and the opposition.
James Neesham comes in place of Jayant Yadav. Dhawal Kulkarni replaces Nathan Coulter-Nile. For us, every game is important, don't wanbt top look too forward, tuck all the small boxes and get things right," said Rohit after winning the toss.
Chennai Super Kings, on the other hand, went with an unchanged set-up. Having won five of their six games so far, the MS Dhoni-led side is topping the points table with 10 points.
Both sides have met on 32 occasions so far, with Mumbai Indians winning in 19 of them. Last season, however, MI and CSK shared the spoils across the two legs in the group stage.
"We were looking to field first as well, the last game we played, the pitch got better and better as the game progressed. All the teams in this IPL are very good, the team which plays well on that day will win. No changes for us," said Dhoni.
Chennai Super Kings (Playing XI): Ruturaj Gaikwad, Faf du Plessis, Moeen Ali, Suresh Raina, Ambati Rayudu, MS Dhoni(w/c), Ravindra Jadeja, Sam Curran, Shardul Thakur, Lungi Ngidi, Deepak Chahar
Mumbai Indians (Playing XI): Rohit Sharma(c), Quinton de Kock(w), Suryakumar Yadav, Kieron Pollard, Hardik Pandya, Krunal Pandya, James Neesham, Rahul Chahar, Dhawal Kulkarni, Jasprit Bumrah, Trent Boult
