Cricinfo previews the match between Delhi Giants and Mumbai Champs

Cricinfo staff29-Oct-2008Match factsOct 30, 2008
Start time 7.30pm (1400 GMT)
Nathan Astle has been good with the ball, but can he turn it on with the bat for Mumbai Champs© ICL
Big PictureWith three more games to go, Mumbai Champs, whose coach Sandeep Patil has been relieved of his duties, will be keen to show they are not in the league to merely make up the numbers. Now it’s up to Nathan Astle, their captain, and new coach Dean Jones to rev up the side. They have no chance of qualifying for the semi-finals – they have no points from five games – but they will want to avoid the wooden spoon.Delhi also lie in the bottom half, but they come into this game on the back of a win against Lahore Badshahs. For Marvan Atapattu’s team, Thursday’s clash will be their final home game, in Gurgaon, and they will want to head to Panchkula with a positive mindset. If Delhi win their final three games, they will be in the reckoning for a semi-final spot.Where they rankMumbai, at the bottom of the pile, have no chance of making it to the semi-finals. Delhi are one place above them, in eighth, but a win on Thursday will surely move them up to fifth. They will then be tied on six points with Chandigarh Lions, but Lahore and Dhaka Warriors, currently on four points, have a game in hand to catch up.Form guide (most recent match first) Delhi: WLLLW
Mumbai: LLLLLStats Mumbai’s dismal campaign is perhaps best reflected by the players who top their batting and bowling averages, or rather the non-performance of their team-mates. With an average of 50.50 and strike-rate of 162.90, Johan van der Wath is surprisingly the best batsman for his team. But the lower-order batsman hasn’t done the job with the new ball; his two wickets have come at an average of 81.00 and he’s conceded 9.72 per over. On the bowling front, it’s captain Astle who leads in terms of average and economy. His five wickets have cost 12.80 apiece, with an economy-rate of 5.33. Surely, more would have been expected from Astle the batsman: in four innings, he has scored only 44. Players to watchLeft-arm spinner Ali Murtaza is the leading wicket-taker so far in this tournament. In five matches, he’s taken nine wickets at an average of 12. Murtaza has also managed to keep the runs down: his economy-rate is 5.6.Abhinav Bali got his top score in the ICL, an unbeaten 47, when Delhi chased down a target of 148 against Lahore. Bali and S Abbas Ali, the architects of that victory, will be key to Delhi’s success.Quotes”I have always played my natural game and that is how I have enjoyed it all along.”
“That day our coach [Sandeep Patil] was telling us that Mumbai have a legacy of having won so many tournaments and we simply have failed to live up to the expectations of them.”
Kiran Powar, the middle-order batsman, says his team has failed to live up to Mumbai’s high cricketing standards“Right now we will only celebrate when we win our next game.”