Mumbai Indians vs Rajasthan Royals, Indian Premier League 2020 Match 45: Team Prediction, Head-to-Head, Probable XIs, TV timings

Defending champions and four-time winners Mumbai Indians will lock horns with Steve Smith-led Rajasthan Royals in Match 45 of the 2020 edition of the Indian Premier League (IPL) at the Sheikh Zayed Stadium in Abu Dhabi on Sunday.

The Rohit Sharma-led side is occupying the top spot in the IPL 2020 standings with seven victories from 10 matches. Rajasthan Royals, on the other hand, are languishing down at the seventh spot in the eight-team table with four wins from 11 games.

Mumbai Indians are coming into the clash on the back of a comprehensive 10-wicket win over Mahendra Singh Dhoni's Chennai Super Kings (CSK) at the Sharjah Cricket Stadium. The victory came under Kieron Pollard’s leadership and in the absence of regular skipper Rohit Sharma, who missed the clash due to a hamstring injury.

Meanwhile, Smith's team is heading into the match after slumping to an eight-wicket defeat at the hands of David Warner's Sunrisers Hyderabad in their previous clash.

In the previous encounter between the two sides, Suryakumar Yadav’s unbeaten 79 and Jasprit Bumrah’s four-wicket haul guided Mumbai Indians to a 57-run victory over the Rajasthan franchise.

While Mumbai will look to seal yet another win over Smith's side, Rajasthan will be keen to bounce back and settle the scores in the two sides' second match of the season.

As far as head-to-head record is concerned, Mumbai Indians hold a slight advantage over Rajasthan Royals. The two teams have faced each other in a total of 24 matches, with MI maintaining a 12-11 lead over RR.

Talking about the two sides' record at this venue, RR have won four out of six matches in Abu Dhabi, while Mumbai have won five out of seven matches here.

Meanwhile, some of the players of the two franchises will also look to achieve individual milestones.

Sanju Samson and Ishan Kishan require 19 runs and 44 runs to reach 2500 runs and 1000 runs, respectively in the IPL.

While Jos Buttler is just two sixes short of completing 50 IPL sixes for RR,  Jasprit Bumarah requires one wicket to reach 100 IPL wickets.

When to watch?

The match between MI and RR will be the second clash of Sunday's double header and will kickstart at 7.30 p.m IST in the absence of fans amid COVID-19 pandemic. 

Where to watch?

The match will be telecast on Star Sports Network, while the live streaming of the tie will also be available on Star’s streaming application Hotstar.

RR vs MI, Dream11 Team Prediction:

Wicketkeeper: Quinton de Kock

Batsmen: Jos Buttler, Steve Smith (captain), Suryakumar Yadav, Riyan Parag, Sanju Samson 

All-rounders: Rahul Tewatia, Kieron Pollard

Bowlers: Jofra Archer, Jasprit Bumrah, Rahul Chahar

Probable XIs:

Mumbai Indians Probable XI: Rohit Sharma/Saurabh Tiwary, Quinton de Kock (WK), Suryakumar Yadav, Ishan Kishan, Kieron Pollard, Hardik Pandya, Krunal Pandya, Nathan Coulter-Nile, Rahul Chahar, Jasprit Bumrah and Trent Boult.

Rajasthan Royals Probable XI: Ben Stokes, Robin Uthappa, Sanju Samson (WK), Steve Smith (C), Jos Buttler, Riyan Parag, Rahul Tewatia, Jofra Archer, Ankit Rajpoot, Shreyas Gopal/Mayank Markande and Kartik Tyagi.

SQUADS:

Mumbai Indians: Rohit Sharma (C), Saurabh Tiwary, Chris Lynn, Anmolpreet Singh, Suryakumar Yadav, Krunal Pandya, Hardik Pandya, Kieron Pollard, Anukul Roy, Prince Balwant Rai, Sherfane Rutherford, Jasprit Bumrah, James Pattinson, Nathan Coulter-Nile, Trent Boult, Dhawal Kulkarni, Rahul Chahar, Jayant Yadav, Mitchell McClenaghan, Quinton de Kock, Ishan Kishan, Aditya Tare, Digvijay Deshmukh and Mohsin Khan.

Rajasthan Royals: Steve Smith (C), David Miller, Manan Vohra, Riyan Parag, Robin Uthappa, Shashank Singh, Yashasvi Jaiswal, Ben Stokes, Mahipal Lomror, Shreyas Gopal, Tom Curran, Anuj Rawat, Jos Buttler, Sanju Samson, Akash Singh, Andrew Tye, Aniruddha Joshi, Ankit Rajpoot, Jaydev Unadkat, Jofra Archer, Kartik Tyagi, Mayank Markande, Oshane Thomas, Rahul Tewatia, Varun Aaron