One team, Chennai Super Kings, is all but assured of a place in the Playoffs. Two teams, Kings XI Punjab and Delhi Daredevils, have been knocked out of the race for the top four. Five others, including Mumbai Indians and their Thursday’s opponents Kolkata Knight Riders, are in the race for occupying the remaining three positions.

Naturally, as it happens in the last week of the Indian Premier League’s group stages, fans and connoisseurs alike, are busy trying to sort out all sorts of permutations and combinations. For Mumbai Indians and the Paltan, however, there is only one thing on the mind: win the remaining two games and make it to the Playoffs.

If Mumbai Indians win both their remaining games, it will give them a great chance. But, for that to happen, they will first have to overcome the challenge of the defending champions and keep themselves in the hunt for their sixth successive appearance in the Playoffs.

The Knight Riders will obviously come hard at Rohit Sharma’s troupes; since Gautam Gambhir and company know it very well, that a victory in one of the two remaining matches, will surely lock their place in the Playoffs. Naturally, they would like to seal the deal with a game to spare.

But, all of the Knight Riders will know that they have a tough task on their hands. Mumbai Indians, despite losing their last match; thanks to a whirlwind partnership between Virat Kohli and AB de Villiers, the Mumbai Indians are a team on the roll. The loss to Royal Challengers Bangalore on Sunday was their first in six games.

And, the Mumbai Indians players know it very well that had it not been for the dropped catches early on, Royal Challengers would have found it very difficult to cross the 200-run mark. Nevertheless, the three day’s break before the back-to-back games, have put Mumbai Indians in good stead. An extended break in such situations, not only helps a team recover mentally but, also allows them to rectify minor chinks that appear in a team’s armoury.

Knight Riders may have defeated Mumbai Indians in the season-opener but, Mumbai Indians are near-invincible at the Wankhede Stadium. With 32,000-plus Paltan cheering for their home team, the buzz at Wankhede, brings out the best in the MI players. And, with most of the MI stars on a song, they would be hoping to give their home fans lots of reasons to smile, in their last home game of the season.

If Lendl Simmons and Parthiv Patel manage to get MI to yet another flying start, it would set the platform for the likes of Rohit, Ambati Rayudu and Kieron Pollard to set Wankhede ablaze with their power-hitting. And with the addition of rookie Hardik Pandya, the lower middle order has been bolstered even more this year, as was witnessed during Pandya’s late charge against Chennai Super Kings.

Similarly, bowling seems to have clicked in the second half of the season. While Mitchell McClenaghan and Lasith Malinga have been leading the pace department, J Suchith has given the much-needed support to Harbhajan Singh, in the spin section. The only area of concern has been, that of the support pace bowler. Both Vinay Kumar and Jasprit Bumrah haven’t been able to contain the opposition batsmen as well as they would have liked.

But, both the bowlers have risen to the occasion in the past, when it mattered the most. And they cannot ask for a better occasion, than a must-win game, against the defending champions to prove their mettle.