The Mumbai Indians and Lahore Lions begin their Champions League T20 campaign on Saturday at the Shaheed Veer Narayan Singh International Stadium, Raipur.
With four teams battling for the top two places in the round robin qualifying stage, a win in the first game is vital to the potential progress of the protagonists. Defeat would not be terminal to a side’s chances, but would make qualification extremely difficult, and would take progress out of their own hands.
With their captain, Rohit Sharma ruled out of the tournament through injury. Mumbai Indians have been forced into naming a new skipper. The final decision went in favour of Kieron Pollard, who has represented the franchise since 2010.
Although Pollard has never led Mumbai, he recently captained the Barbados Tridents to a stunning and most unlikely Caribbean Premier League title.
Pollard will not be short of experience around him, as the Mumbai squad contains Indian legend Harbhajan Singh who led the team to success in the 2012 Champions League, and Sri Lanka fast bowling legend Lasith Malinga, who skippered his country to the World T20 title just four months ago, as well as leading Southern Express to the domestic Sri Lanka Super Fours title.
The West Indian has played 96 games for Mumbai, during which he has scored 1778 runs at a strike rate of over 144, and has also taken 53 wickets along the way.
Lahore Lions having qualified with a last ball victory against the Faisalabad Wolves in the final of the 2013–14 Faysal Bank T20 Cup, Pakistan’s domestic T20 tournament, will be keen to make the most of the opportunity that they secured at the end of a difficult qualifying process.
There was further uncertainty about the Lions participation until the last few days, due to Visa problems. Led by Mohammad Hafeez, and with other star names like Umar Akmal and Ahmed Shehzad in their line-up, the Lions should be challengers to qualify, if not to challenge for the title itself.