The 36th match of IPL 2020 is to be played between Mumbai Indians and Kings XI Punjab at Dubai International Cricket Stadium on Sunday. Both teams have reached here after winning their respective previous matches. If Rohit Sharma-led Mumbai Indians win tonight, they will virtually seal them a spot in the play-offs while a loss for KL Rahul-led Punjab could make it impossible for them to make it to the playoffs.
While Punjab will look to maintain the winning momentum, the Mumbai Indians team will want to beat Punjab to attain a double hat-trick of wins in IPL 2020. Mumbai come into this match after winning their last 5 games in a row. If they beat Punjab tonight, it will be her sixth victory.


Mumbai Indians in their last game defeated Kolkata Knight Riders by 8-wickets to secure top spot in IPL 2020 points table. Mumbai had given a chance to Nathan Coulter Nile in place of Pattinson in that match, but he was very expensive and gave away a lot of runs. Today, once again Mumbai's team can give chance to Nile so that he can improve his game ahead of the playoffs.

On the other hand, Kings XI Punjab, in their last match, included Universe boss Chris Gayle in the playing XI for the first time. Gayle did not open for Punjab, but he came in at number three and played a fiery innings of 53. Punjab's batting is doing well, but they are not able to finish the match in a good way.


Against RCB in their last game, KL Rahul scored 61, Mayank Agarwal 45 and Chris Gayle played a half-century, but KXIP still managed to win the match on the last ball, courtesy a six from Nicholas Pooran. If Punjab wants to keep their hopes alive of reaching the playoffs, they will have to learn to finish the game.

KXIP vs MI Head to head: So far 25 matches have been played in the IPL between Mumbai Indians and Kings XI Punjab, in which 14 times Mumbai have won and Kings XI Punjab has won 11 times. Punjab has managed to win only one match against Mumbai in their last 6 matches. This season, Mumbai faced KXIP once and defeated Punjab by a big margin of 48 runs.

Full Squads-

 

Kings XI Punjab: KL Rahul (wk/c), Mayank Agarwal, Chris Gayle, Nicholas Pooran, Glenn Maxwell, Deepak Hooda, Chris Jordan, Murugan Ashwin, Mohammed Shami, Ravi Bishnoi, Arshadip Singh, Mandeep Singh, Karun Nair, Krishnappa Gautham, James Neesham, Sheldon Cottrell, Hardas Willogen, Jagdish Suchit, Ishaan Porel, Mujib ur Rehman, Tajinder Singh, Darshan Nalakande, Simran Singh, Harpreet Brar, Sarfaraz Khan

Mumbai Indians: Rohit Sharma (C), Quinton de Kock (WK), Suryakumar Yadav, Ishan Kishan, Hardik Pandya, Kieron Pollard, Krunal Pandya, Nathan Coulter-Nile, Rahul Chahar, Trent Boult, Jasprit Bumrah, Dhawal Kulkarni, Saurabh . Tiwari, James Pattinson, Aditya Tare, Mitchell McClenaghan, Chris Lynn, Jayant Yadav, Anmolpreet Singh, Anukul Roy, Mohsin Khan, Sherfen Rutherford, Digvijay Deshmukh, Prince Balwant Rai