On Wednesday, two sides who have managed just one win each in the current campaign, the reigning Champions the Mumbai Indians and the Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB clash at the Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai.
After Monday’s contest in the competition, that saw the Sunrisers Hyderabad defeat Mumbai, the Challengers were occupying fourth position in the qualifying table, despite only having played two games, at least one less than all of their rivals.
The Champions meanwhile, find themselves down in seventh position of the eight competing teams, having played four fixtures, three of which they have lost already.
While Bangalore have an amazing array of batting talent available to them, it is the West Indian opener Chris Gayle, with his ability to completely dismember opponents bowling attacks, who possibly holds the key to their hopes of claiming the title this season.
However, Gayle, who has made 2737 of his 3200 IPL runs for RCB, including an amazing 175 not out from just 66 deliveries against Pune Warriors in 2013, has scores of just 1 and 0 this season. In fact he hasn’t posted double figures since his century off of just 47 balls against England in the World T20 Tournament.
Mumbai fell to a third defeat in four attempts in 2016 on Monday, when they crashed to the previously winless Sunrisers Hyderabad at the Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium, Uppal, Hyderabad.
If the Champions put up as inept a performance against the Challengers as they did against the Sunrisers, they will be staring down the barrel of another defeat. In seamer friendly conditions, their bowlers were much too short in their length, giving David Warner the chance to cut and pull his way to an unbeaten 90 off of 59 deliveries, and lead his side to a 7-wicket win.