Mumbai opt to field in must-win clash

The Mumbai Indians won the toss and elected to field first in their Champions League Twenty20 match against the Perth Scorchers at the Feroz Shah Kotla Stadium in Delhi on Wednesday.

 

Perth are already out of the tournament after failing to win any of their first three games while Mumbai’s hopes of a semifinal place hang by a thread.

 

Mumbai, playing their last group match, are currently third in Group A, four points behind the Otago Volts on 10 points.

 

Mumbai can draw level with Otago on points but the IPL team have a far inferior net run-rate and will need to beat Perth by a hefty margin to keep in their interest in the tournament alive.

 

Mumbai’s Sachin Tendulkar is on the brink of yet another landmark and he needs just 26 runs to reach the 50, 000 run mark in all senior cricket.

 

Both teams have made changes to their playing XIs with Mumbai bringing in allrounder Glenn Maxwell for Mitchell Johnson.

 

Perth have made three changes with left-arm wrist spinner Brad Hogg, Marcus North and Sam Whiteman coming into the team

 

MUMBAI INDIANS: SR Tendulkar, DR Smith, KD Karthik (wk), RG Sharma (capt), KA Pollard, GJ Maxwell, AT Rayudu, NM Coulter-Nile, Harbhajan Singh, R Dhawan, PP Ojha

 

PERTH SCORCHERS:AC Agar, SM Katich (capt), SM Whiteman, MJ North, HWR Cartwright, AJ Turner, TIF Triffitt (wk), JS Paris, JP Behrendorff, GB Hogg, MA Beer

 

- SuperSport