IPL 2024 SRH vs MI Preview - 2 sides who snatched defeat from the jaws of victory look for their opening win

Key match stats

Pitch Stats – IPL records at the Rajiv Gandhi Stadium

Pitch stats from the 10 most recent IPL matches played at the Rajiv Gandhi Stadium

Team form SRH vs MI
SRH: L
MI: L

Recent meetings: IPL 2023 - MI won by 8 wickets, MI won by 14 runs

Weather

General Forecast: Dry and Clear
Chance of dew: Very Low

Preview SRH vs MI

Mumbai Indians lose their opening game of an IPL season!

Is not a headline we haven't all seen many times before. However, the manner of their defeat in Ahmedabad will have disappointed MI fans around the world.

They appeared to be cruising towards victory at about the half way stage, needing 62 runs from 48 balls with 8 wickets in hand but they failed to capitalise on that strong position, scoring just 26 runs from the next 30 balls to really dig themselves into a hole.

Not taking unnecessary risks against the likes of Rashid Khan is one thing but turning down singles (as Tilak Varma and Tim David did) just shows a lack of intensity. Ultimately they allowed GT back into the game and by the time MI woke up and started playing some shots, their hosts were already favourites to get the win as demonstrated by the rollercoaster line on Cricinfo's win probability graph.

win probability graph GT vs MI, source: cricinfo

SRH will be ruing their own missed opportunity in their opening game against KKR. Having reduced the hosts to 51 for 4, Sunrisers must have been thinking that they'd be chasing a total at worst around the 170 mark before Andre Russell came in and blitzed their bowlers to all parts of Eden Gardens.

The Sunrisers' performance with the ball can probably best be summed up by looking at Bhuvi's figures. He bowled 2 immaculate powerplay overs for 7 runs where he beat the bat on multiple occasions and had the opposition worrying more about survival than scoring. However, he managed to finish with figures of 0 for 51 as KKR's lower order tucked in at the death.

SRH were always behind the rate in the chase but managed to just work themselves into a position where a couple of big overs would give them a chance. When 47 runs were scored across overs 18 and 19 and the first ball of the last over was also smoked for 6 it looked like Heinrich Klaasen and SRH were going to pull off one of the best run chases in IPL history before Harshit Rana struck back to break Sunriser hearts.

Turning our attention to this match, at the time of writing (before the CSK v GT match), all 6 games this season have been won by the home side. This marks a significant change from last season, where more games were won by away teams

Season	Home wins	Away wins
2023	38.7%	62.3%
2024 to date	100%	0%

win % home and away by IPL season

Part of the reason for the poor performance at home by so many franchises last season is surely the fact that most players appearing in the IPL hadn't played in their home conditions since 2019 as a result of the restrictions imposed during Covid.

Last season appears to have given individual players the chance to adapt to conditions and franchises themselves the opportunity to tweek their personnel to better suit the pitches that half of their games will be played on.

The Sunrisers could certainly do with an improvement in home form. They won just a single match here at the Rajiv Gandhi Stadium last year and generally struggled with conditions.

Balls per boundary in the last 10 IPL matches, by stadium

This can be a surface that gets a bit slower as the game goes on but also it's one of the larger playing areas in the IPL and that makes boundary hitting significantly harder. For example, compared to Eden Gardens where SRH played their opening match or the Wankhede stadium that Mumbai call home, the Rajiv Gandhi sees a 6 hit on average once every 3 overs whereas the other 2 venues get a maximum struck every 2. Exploiting this fact while not falling victim too it, will be key in this match and all games played here in IPL 2024.

SRH vs MI head to head

MI bowling vs SRH batting

Speaking of poor home records, you only need to look at the stats for many of the SRH batsmen here at the Rajiv Gandhi stadium to see why they've struggled to win.

Abhishek Sharma T20 batting record at the Rajiv Gandhi Stadium

Of SRH's likely top 3, Agarwal and Tripathi are both hovering around an average of 20, strike rate of 120 at this ground, while Abhishek Sharma has had an absolute nightmare when batting in Hyderabad.

MI opted to open with Hardik Pandya and Luke Wood in their opening match but they must surely be tempted to give Bumrah first crack at this flaky looking SRH top order especially given his record against Agarwal.

Agarwal T20 head to head vs Bumrah

Of course the temptation for MI is always to hold Bumrah back for later in the innings and they'll certainly want to have an over or 2 up their sleeve for when Klaasen walks to the crease. He's only faced 1 ball from Bumrah in T20s before this match but he does average 50 at this ground with a strike rate of 188. Based on last season and the start of this one, if you get him cheaply then a match vs SRH might be over early!

SRH bowling vs MI batting

In terms of bowlers who might benefit from the aforementioned dimensions of this ground, SRH's best option is probably their captain Pat Cummins who is very happy bowling back of a length and asking batsmen to take the chance of hitting cross batted shots to men waiting in the deep.

Ishan Kishan T20 head to head vs Cummins

That's exactly where Cummins has had success against the likes of Ishan Kishan in the past, although it should be noted that none of those 4 dismissals have occurred before the 11th over of the innings when of course the field can be spread back.

SRH took just 11 wickets in the powerplay at the Rajiv Gandhi in 2023 and 8 of those came against the sides who also made up the bottom 4 come the end of the season. Conditions here on Tuesday are unlikely to see a huge amount of swing (unlike the muggy atmosphere in Kolkata that Bhuvi benefitted from on Sunday) so SRH may need to rethink their tactics.

The ideal solution would almost certainly see Hasaranga come into the team but the Sri Lankan revoked his decision to retire from Test Match cricket in essence only to serve his 2 match ban for dissent in the series currently being played against Bangladesh, thereby freeing him up to play in the T20 World Cup that starts in June. What some are calling a stroke of genius by the Sri Lanka Board has not really helped SRH who are unlikely to have their star spinner available until the end of next week.

Tilak Varma and Tim David combined T20 head to head vs Bhuvi and Jansen

Equally, as we saw in their opening game against KKR, even where there is early movement for the 'pitch it up' style bowlers, when they are asked to come back on at the close of the innings they can often go for a big runs. The head to head record that a few of MI's middle order have against the likes of Bhuvi and Jansen suggest that they'll be happy to take the chance of easy runs where they are offered.

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All stats used in this blog are from my own databases which are freely accessible below
IPL player head to head records
IPL player records by stadium
IPL stadium records.
Images are my own with the exception of player profiles and highlights within GIFs which are not intended to infringe copyright- read full disclaimer. Background images are used under a creative commons license or otherwise royalty free.