Former Mumbai Indians skipper Rohit Sharma wasn't named in Mumbai Indians' playing XI as the Men in Blue won the toss and elected to field against the Lucknow Super Giants on Friday, March 4 at the BRSABV Ekana Stadium. Captain Hardik Pandya confirmed that Rohit got injured during the training and wasn't 100 per cent for the game.
"Rohit was hit on the knee during practice. He is missing out," Hardik said at the toss. Punjab all-rounder Raj Angad Bawa replaced Rohit in the playing XI while Tilak Varma is likely to be substituted as the impact player. In Rohit's absence, Will Jacks will open the innings for Mumbai Indians alongside Ryan Rickelton.
It hasn't been a great start for Rohit Sharma with the bat with scores of 0, 8 and 13 in three matches and Mumbai Indians will hope that the break does him a world of good. Having chased down the total in the last match against the Kolkata Knight Riders, Mumbai Indians will be confident to chase yet again.
On the other hand, Lucknow Super Giants brought in Akash Deep in place of M Siddharth. Akash Deep missed the first three matches as he was recovering from an injury but was now raring to go. The Super Giants like the Mumbai Indians have lost two out of three matches played so far and will be keen to turn it around. Punjab Kings caught them off guard on their home soil and like KKR did with their curator, Lucknow will hope that complaining about pitch in the last game would benefit them on Friday.
Mumbai Indians playing XI against Lucknow: Will Jacks, Ryan Rickelton(w), Suryakumar Yadav, Hardik Pandya(c), Naman Dhir, Raj Bawa, Mitchell Santner, Trent Boult, Ashwani Kumar, Deepak Chahar, Vignesh Puthur
Impact substitutes: Tilak Varma, Corbin Bosch, Robin Minz, Satyanarayana Raju, Karn Sharma