Aakash Chopra believes the Mumbai Indians would be difficult to overcome, but the Gujarat Titans should not be underestimated in Qualifier 2 of the ongoing IPL 2023.
Both teams will play against each other at Narendra Modi Stadium on 26th May. The winner will meet the Chennai Super Kings in the final two days later at the same stadium.
Aakash Chopra predicted that the Mumbai Indians will be a difficult nut to crack when previewing the game in a video posted on his YouTube channel. He did, however, emphasise that the Gujarat Titans are a formidable squad, explaining:
“It will not be easy to beat Mumbai. Gujarat are also a good team. Don’t take Gujarat lightly because they remained at No. 1 continuously throughout the tournament. Once they became No. 1, they didn’t go down after that and qualified extremely easily.”
The former Indian opener declined to name a favourite team.
“There was no pressure on them to win the last match. Others’ fortunes were in their hands. So I feel it will be an extremely beautiful encounter. It is 50-50. I am not saying anything, whoever plays well should win, what difference does it make to us? We should get to see a good match.”
The Mumbai Indians have won six of their previous eight matches, including an 81 run Eliminator victory against the Lucknow Super Giants. The Gujarat Titans finished first in the IPL 2023 points table with ten victories, but fell short against CSK in Qualifier 1.
Aakash Chopra excited for Mohammad Shami’s bowling to the Mumbai Indians openers
Aakash Chopra predicts a thrilling match between Mohammad Shami of the Gujarat Titans and Rohit Sharma and Ishan Kishan of the Mumbai Indians.
“For me, the contest of the day that you would want to watch attentively is Mohammad Shami bowling to the two Mumbai Indians openers. When both these teams met last time, Shami was bowling under lights but he didn’t get a single wicket.”
Aakash Chopra stated that the GT seamer was wicketless in their previous match in Ahmedabad. He did note out that the right arm seamer was nearly unplayable in that game.
“However, if you had seen that spell, you would have said what a spell it was, that he should have got not one or two but four or five wickets. The batters weren’t able to touch the ball with their bats but it wasn’t his day, went wicketless. There was a catch in the end which Hardik Pandya dropped.”
Chopra concluded by pointing out that Rohit has a poor record in playoff games, excluding finals. He noted that it will be intriguing to observe how Kishan performs under the lights in seaming situations.