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Have Mumbai acclimatised to South African conditions?
by Asher Wilson


Scorecard:Lions v Mumbai Indians
Event:Champions League 2012/13

DateLine: 14th October 2012

 

Lions v Mumbai Indians
Match Preview
Champions League 2012

 

The Lions will see their first action in the 2012 edition of the Champions League T20 on their home ground when they face the powerful Mumbai Indians at The Wanderers on Sunday.

 

This match follows the earlier Group B clash between the Super Kings and the Sydney Sixers and tournament outsiders Yorkshire are the other team who will compete in this group. The Lions finished as runners up (to the Titans) in the domestic MiWay T20 Challenge last season and they do have previous experience of taking part in this tournament. The CLT20 was staged in South Africa in 2010 and the Lions were one of two local hopes. They won two of their four group matches and were denied a place in the semi finals due to an inferior net run rate to the second placed finishers whilst Mumbai finished just below the Lions in the same group. The Lions are up against two powerful Indian franchises in this group and also the most fancied of the Australian franchises but they go in with pretty much the same group of players who went so close in the domestic T20 competition last season and they will be looking for a big scalp or two along the way.

 

The Mumbai Indians won the Champions League T20 tournament last year, getting the better of RCB in the final. Their IPL 2012 campaign saw them finish third on the log in the round robin stage with ten wins and six defeats but they lost to the Super Kings in the “eliminator” thereafter. Big-hitter Richard Levi provides the local interest and Harbahajan Singh skippers the squad which includes Sachin Tendulkar. They also have a number of players whose national teams did well in the World T20 tournament recently concluded, Lasith Malinga and Thisara Perera of Sri Lanka and Dwayne Smith and Kieron Pollard of the West Indies.

 

Coincidentally the first match in Group B of the 2010 edition of this tournament saw the Lions host Mumbai at the Wanderers and the home side came out top by 9 runs in a high scoring thriller.

 

One potential question mark on Mumbai may be the short space of time many of their squad have had to acclimatize from T20 World Cup conditions in Sri Lanka to a CLT20 clash on the Highveld. That aside, the awesome hitting power of this Mumbai side warrants the favourites tag but the Lions should not be underestimated on home turf. Taking Mumbai to hit the most sixes is where we are heading.

 

Lions: T Bavuma, GH Bodi, Z de Bruyn, Q de Kock, ND McKenzie, P Matshikwe, CH Morris, DP Nannes, E O'Reilly, AN Petersen, AM Phangiso, D Pretorius, Sohail Tanvir, J Symes, TL Tsolekile

 

Mumbai Indians: Harbhajan Singh, MG Johnson, KD Karthik, DS Kulkarni, RE Levi, SL Malinga, PP Ojha, MM Patel, NLTC Perera, KA Pollard, AT Rayudu, RG Sharma, DR Smith, SR Tendulkar, SA Yadav

(Article: The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author only.
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