Punjab Kings and Mumbai Indians are in the bottom half and both the teams will try their best to find a winning formula when they face each other on Thursday. The campaigns of both the teams have derailed and both the teams have the same four points after six matches each. Punjab team is at seventh position with a net run rate of 0.218 and Mumbai Indians team is at eighth position with the lowest net run rate of 0.234. Punjab and Mumbai have lost four matches each and both lost their last match also. Captain Hardik Pandya is facing criticism from Chomere due to Mumbai's performance.
For Mumbai, the return of opener Rohit Sharma to form is a relief for the team but he is not getting support from other batsmen on the front end. Fast bowler Jasprit Bumrah is in his best form. Big innings will be expected from Rohit's teammate Ishan Kishan. In the middle order, Suryakumar, Cameron Green and Tim David will have to play an important role in getting the team's campaign back on track by scoring big. Shikhar Dhawan not playing is a big blow for Punjab. Due to shoulder injury, he will be out of cricket for about 10 days. The team's domestic cricketers Shashank Singh and Ashutosh Sharma have performed well but they are batting in the lower order. Both have often hidden the inefficiencies of the top order. The form of illumination has also become a matter of concern. He has scored 119 runs in six matches at an average of 19.83. Indian wicketkeeper Jitesh Sharma also could not perform anything special. He has scored 106 runs in six matches at an average of 17.66. Match-winning performance will be expected from all-rounder Sam Curran. Arshdeep Singh (nine wickets) and Harshal Patel (seven wickets) are becoming easy prey for the batsmen.