“They might still not play him” - Aakash Chopra ahead of PBKS vs MI, Qualifier 2

Former Indian cricketer and commentator Aakash Chopra has opened up on Mumbai Indians’ winning the eliminator over the Gujarat Titans and moving ahead to the second qualifier against the Punjab Kings, scheduled to play on Sunday, June 1.

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Chopra feels the captain, who wins the toss, would love to bowl first, on the Ahmedabad wicket. However, he feels that decision completely depends on the dew factor. Moreover, he asserted that Lankan batter Charith Asalanka might not get into the playing XI in Qualifier 2.

"Whoever wins the toss might decide to bowl first. However, if you see the last match, Punjab invited Mumbai to bat first, and they won the game, but Mumbai won the last match by scoring a lot of runs while batting first. I think the dew will decide. If dew isn't there, maybe you want to bat first and put a lot of runs on the board," Chopra said on his YouTube channel.

"If Richard Gleeson isn't there and we don't know about Deepak Chahar's availability, a few holes are seen in Mumbai's bowling, but they have superpower batting. Interestingly, they didn't play Charith Asalanka in the last match. They might still not play him because there aren't too many options in fast bowling apart from Ashwani Kumar," he added.

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Furthermore, Chopra also talked about the league stage game between Punjab Kings and Mumbai Indians when the former bagged a convincing win at the Sawai Mansingh Stadium in Jaipur to confirm their top two spot in the standings.

"Punjab will take a lot of heart from the fact that when these two teams met last time, that too was an important match, it wasn't an Eliminator, but whoever won would have finished in the top two and whoever lost would have finished at No. 3 or No. 4, Punjab won that game in style," he stated.

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