Mumbai, Apr 27: The rampaging Chris Gayle will be the cynosure of all eyes as table-toppers Royal Challengers Bangalore lock horns with Mumbai Indians in the Pepsi Indian Premier League (IPL) here today.
Placed sixth in the points table, it will be imperative for Mumbai to get Gayle early if they are to continue their winning momentum, after the positive result against Kolkata Knight Riders.
For the record, Gayle had smashed his way to the fastest century in the history of T20 cricket in his team's massive win over Pune Warriors. And the strapping Jamaican has it in him to do an encore once more.
With Gayle in such roaring form, no total can be called safe, and that is why Mumbai would look to score as many as possible.
Dwayne Smith and Rohit Sharma engineered Mumbai to a morale-boosting win over Kolkata in their last away match. But Sachin Tendulkar failed to rise to the occasion on his 40th birthday, and the veteran batsman will look to make up for that in front of a packed Wankhede Stadium.
The five-wicket win over Kolkata would have surely boosted Mumbai's confidence, as it came after two heavy defeats—to Rajasthan Royals by 87 runs and Delhi Daredevils by nine wickets.
Bangalore, though, is a different ball game altogether.
Despite having a star-studded line-up, Mumbai haven't been able to achieve the results. With four wins in seven matches, they find themselves among the four bottom-placed teams.
The openers haven't been able to provide a solid foundation and the team management has changed the combination twice (Sachin Tendulkar and Ricky Ponting and later Dwayne Smith and Tendulkar) without yielding much result.
Smith smashed a 45-ball 62 to guide his team to victory in the previous match and the West Indian will look to continue in the same vein.
