On the back of three consecutive victories, defending champions Mumbai Indians will be keen to keep that form going when they face Rajasthan Royals in a must-win game at the Wankhede stadium in Mumbai on Sunday.
Rajasthan will be keen to carry their form into the away game after registering two back-to-back victories in do-or-die games in Jaipur.
Both these sides started poorly in the tournament, losing several matches due to below-par performance of their star players, which have put them in a situation where each and every game has become a virtual knockout.
While Mumbai is sitting at the fifth position with 10 points in their kitty, Royals are lying at sixth with the same number of points in 11 games. To keep their hopes alive of making into the Top-4, both these sides will have to bring out their best performance on the field on Sunday. Barring Sunrisers, the remaining three play-off spots are yet to be decided and all the remaining teams except Delhi Daredevils have the chance to make it.
Hence, both these sides will try to raise the level of their performance to seal those places.
For the hosts Mumbai, their batting revolves around Suryakumar Yadav, who is having the form of his life. The Mumbai batsman has smashed 435 runs from 11 innings so far, while young Ishan Ishan, who made a quick-fire 62 off 21 balls against Kolkata Knight Riders in the last game, has also performed well in patches.
But the inconsistent form of skipper Rohit Sharma and opener Evin lewis has been the cause for worry. Both these batsman have failed to justify their tag in the shortest format despite giving glimpses of their abilities in this campaign.
In the bowling unit, Mumbai bowlers are continuously getting wickets and in the past few games they have also restricted the leakage of runs in the slog overs.
For Rajasthan Royals, English wicket-keeper batsman Jos Buttler's return to form has been the biggest positive. The former Mumbai batsman has grabbed the opportunity of opening the innings with both his hands and has smashed four consecutive fifty plus scores in the past four games.
But the poor form of skipper Rahaneand Rahul Tripathi has been a concern for the side. Since both these batsman have regularly failed with the bat, Royals middle-order seemed to look weak. While, the top two buys of the season Ben Stokes and Jaydev Unadkat have neither lived up to their billing.