Sachin Tendulkar

Mumbai: Six straight defeats weighing them down, debutants Pune Warriors’ enormous task of keeping their wafer-thin hopes of advancing to the next stage alive doesn’t get any easier as they take on the formidable Mumbai Indians, here Wednesday.

The two teams are on the opposite ends of the win-loss table, going into their ninth round clash at the D.Y.Patil Stadium.

Pune Warriors have, however, got a shot in the arm with the inclusion of Sourav Ganguly in place of injured pacer Ashish Nehra Tuesday. But it remains to be seen whether he would play Wednesday itself.

Mumbai Indians bounced back from a hiccup against Rajasthan Royals to notch up their sixth victory in eight ties Monday night against Kings XI Punjab at the Wankhede, while Pune Warriors went down to the same Jaipur franchise two days ago for their sixth loss in eight games.

The Pune Warriors have, only fleetingly, shown the desired combined effort after notching up two impressive victories at the start of the season. If the batting clicked, the bowlers went off target and if the latter delivered, the batsmen flopped.

The absence of some key players, especially South African opener Graeme Smith who picked up a freak injury after colliding with teammate Rahul Sharma on the field, while going for a high catch early in the tournament, has clearly upset the balance of the outfit.

According to Yuvraj, a call on Smith’s availability will only be taken on Wednesday moring.

The team has tried out Manish Pandey, after he served his four-match ban, to partner Jesse Ryder after Smith’s injury, but it has not produced the desired result as far as the opening partnership is concerned.

Only in the last match did Pandey show he has dusted off the rust in his batting to some extent, but Ryder did not follow suit and the stand was broken at 24.

Yuvraj has had to single-handedly do most of the things with the bat, which alone has not been enough to get them the points.

The swashbuckling left-hander and India’s World Cup hero has been the top run-getter with 239 runs at 47 per innings.

Unheralded Alphonso Thomas of South Africa and domestic product Rahul Sharma, with nine wickets each, have been the pick of the bowlers.

But they have not got the requisite support from the others, among whom Murali Karthik, despite his vast experience in first-class cricket, has been a big disappointment.

The left-arm spin bowler has not only leaked runs aplenty but also secured just a solitary wicket.

In contrast to the Warriors, is the situation in which Mumbai Indians find themselves.

They are sitting pretty with 12 points to their credit and are well on course to book an early berth in the play-offs commencing on May 24 as one of the top four finishers in the round robin phase.

Mumbai’s worst display so far has been against the Royals when their strong batting led by Sachin Tendulkar failed to muster even a 100 runs.