In search of bouncing back from their loss against Delhi Capitals, Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) skipper Smriti Mandhana has included promising spinner Shreyanka Patil in place of Asha Shobana. Mandhana also won the toss and chose to bat first against a dominant Mumbai Indians (MI) side who thrashed Gujarat Giants by 142 runs in their opening match of the competition.
Bangalore will hope to improve in their bowling department especially and will hope to take the game to the in-form Mumbai batters. For Mumbai, they had an exceptional balance between the batting and bowling units, but the side will be wary of the threat of players by Sophie Devine, Ellyse Perry and Mandhana herself, as well as Richa Ghosh, given what happened in the second game on Sunday, March 5, between UP Warriorz and Gujarat Giants.
Defending her decision to bat first, Mandhana said, "It looks like a good wicket to bat on and chasing builds pressure. We had a chat in the meeting that thinking about totals would not help, we have to play to our strengths and we will get the big total. One of the top four batters has to bat deep and if we can do that then we will post good totals."
Meanwhile, Harmanpreet said that her national team vice-captain is luckier than her in terms of tosses. "Smriti is a little luckier than me (with the toss). We wanted to bowl first and we got that. We have the confidence in our bowling unit and that's why we wanted to bowl today. We are going with the same XI," said confirmed.
Mumbai Indians Women
Yastika Bhatia (wk), Hayley Matthews, Nat Sciver-Brunt, Harmanpreet Kaur(c), Amelia Kerr, Pooja Vastrakar, Issy Wong, Amanjot Kaur, Humaira Kazi, Jintimani Kalita, Saika Ishaque
