Workload management of pacer Jasprit Bumrah and all-rounder Hardik Pandya will be the focus when Mumbai Indians take on a renamed Delhi Capitals in their first match of the 12th Indian Premier League in Mumbai on Sunday.
Rohit Sharma is likely to miss his third game in a row when Mumbai Indians take on Royal Challengers Bangalore in Abu Dhabi on Wednesday with both teams aiming to secure their spot in the IPL play-offs.
Table-toppers Mumbai Indians are on course to make it to the play-offs but the game is crucial for Rajasthan, who are languishing in seventh place. Defeat would mean a step closer to elimination.
In the event of Narine missing out again, Mumbai will fancy their chances even more at the Sheikh Zayed stadium, where skipper Rohit Sharma has scored both his half-centuries this season.
Rajasthan Royals may need to rejig their Indian line-up slightly when they try to pull their IPL campaign out of the current rot against a supremely confident Mumbai Indians,
Delhi Capitals have never reached the IPL final, never made the top-two, and ventured into the top-four for the first time since 2012.
Delhi's performance at home is woeful, but having registered a win after two consecutive losses at the Kotla, the Shreyas Iyer-led outfit is high on confidence.
However, Rajasthan would be a bit more desperate than Delhi as they are languishing at the second last position in the points table with just three wins from nine outings.
Seeking home comforts after multiple reverses at the Ferozshah Kotla, Delhi Capitals will be desperate to buck the trend when they take on a rejuvenated Kings XI Punjab in the Indian Premier League, in Delhi, on Saturday.
Focus will now be on how Rabada would fare against the likes of Chris Gayle, Lokesh Rahul, Mayank Agarwal and David Miller.
They stand on the opposite ends of IPL's success spectrum but there is little to separate between Mumbai Indians and Delhi Capitals in the tournament's 13th edition as they head into a blockbuster Qualifier 1 match, in Dubai, on Thursday.
Mumbai Indians had roared back to form after thrashing RCB by five-wickets in the last game, there are problems aplenty for DC.
Grace and strength will be on one side while poise and killer instinct on the other when a revamped Kolkata Knight Riders take on champions Mumbai Indians in the Indian Premier League, on Wednesday.
Eight teams have formed some of the best combinations from a pool of 64 top cricketers in the players' draft for T10League -- the limited ten-over format cricket -- that will be played at the Sharjah Cricket Stadium.
efending champions Chennai Super Kings produced a clinical performance to beat Delhi Capitals by six wickets and enter their eighth final of the Indian Premier League.
The unmatched legacy and hegemony created by the galacticos of Mumbai Indians will be thoroughly challenged by a young Mumbaikar Shreyas Iyer, who will lead a passionate-but-unpredictable Delhi Capitals in a cracker of an Indian Premier League final, in Dubai, on Tuesday.
It was CSK who denied Delhi a top-two spot in the league standings with a crushing 80-run win at Chepauk and the Mahendra Singh Dhoni-led side stands in their way again, only the stakes are much higher.
The celebrated duo of head coach Ricky Ponting and mentor Sourav Ganguly has managed to instill belief in the team members and that is visible on the field. The team now seems to believe that it can win the title after a long spell as the perennial underachiever of the competition.
Youngsters like Brandon King, Khary Pierre, Sherfane Rutherford, Keserick Williams and Hayden Walsh Jr were preferred for the India tour
Having sealed the series with a comprehensive win in the second T20I at Lucknow riding on skipper Rohit Sharma's brilliant ton, the home team would look to give reserve bench players like Shreyas Iyer, MS Washington Sundar and the uncapped Shahbaz Nadeem an opportunity before it embarks on the tour of Australia.
Maverick batsman Chris Gayle opted out of the ODI and T20 series against India citing personal reasons as the West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) named three fresh faces for the assignment.
Architect-turned-cricketer Varun Chakravarthy, with a base price of Rs 20 lakh, went to Kings XI Punjab for a massive Rs. 8.4 crore, while Rajasthan Royals retained Jaydev Unadkat for the same amount.
Images from Saturday's IPL match between Delhi Capitals and Rajasthan Royals, in New Delhi.
Images from Wednesday's IPL match between Chennai Super Kings and Delhi Capitals, in Chennai.
CSK's Harbhajan Singh and Mumbai Indians' Lasith Malinga were among the other big names to be released by their respective sides ahead of next month's auction.
Every person was tested 72 hours before they travelled in order to ensure that all members of the party were travelling virus free.
After winning the 2nd T20I with ease, the Windies go into the decider with confidence and the tie will certainly not be a cakewalk for the hosts, who will look to seal their second T20I series this season.
In the last 13 months, India have played the West Indies in six T20 Internationals with the hosts coming up trumps every single time.
List of players released by IPL teams ahead of next month's auction for 2020 season:
West Indies, on the other hand, would be desperate to return home with some positivity at the end of a two-month long series in which they lost both the Test and ODI series.
India, without captain Virat Kohli and veteran Mahendra Singh Dhoni, won't have it easy against T20 World champions West Indies, who are bolstered by the arrival of star players Darren Bravo, Kieron Pollard and Andre Russell.
IMAGES from the IPL match played between Rajasthan and Delhi in Jaipur on Monday
It will not be the first time that the competition has had to be held outside India.
Rajneesh Gupta brings you all the numbers from the just concluded IPL-12.
Rajneesh Gupta presents Mumbai Indians's record in the IPL over the years:
Rajneesh Gupta presents statistical summary of Delhi Capitals formerly known as Delhi Daredevils and much more.
590 cricketers -- including 370 Indian players and 220 overseas players -- will go under the hammer during the two-day mega auction in Bengaluru on February 12 and 13.
India Test regulars like Cheteswar Pujara and Ishant Sharma have also thrown their hat into the ring with base prices of Rs 50 and Rs 75 lakh respectively.