16th match of the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2017 will be played between Gujarat Lions (GL) and Mumbai Indians (MI) at Wankhede Stadium, Mumbai on 16th April. One important trivia to be noted is that this match is dedicated to Reliance Foundation Education For All (EFA) and Mumbai Indians’ owners have reserved the entire Wankhede stadium for their NGO partners’ underprivileged children, so the booking for this match was not allowed at all.
Mumbai Indians have won in the last three games they’ve played in the tournament, while only losing the opening game. MI seems to be most consistent with their performance in IPL 2017 till now. This will be third home match for MI, they’ve so far won both the previous matches. Needless to say MI are strongest at their home turf, Wankhede. While restricting Royal Challengers Bangalore to 142, MI were dominant in the game. But in the 2nd inning, Badree took a hat-trick for RCB and MI were close to being in a mess. But Pollard, Rana and Krunal came with their spectacle to rescue the match for their team. While fitness of Lasith Malinga will be a bit of concern, who missed the last game and there is little chance that he will be able to be fit for this match.
Gujarat Lions registered their first win of the tournament against Rising Pune Supergiant after losing the first couole of games. This was a good team performance for the Gujarat Lions. Andrew Tye debuting in IPL was Man of the Match for taking 5 wickets with a hat-trick. And the batsmen made no mistakes and chased 171 comfortably in 18 overs. Finally Gujarat Lions got right combination for the team and would want to continue the performance to top the table agian like last year.
Head to head: MI vs GL
They have encountered each other twice in IPL 2016 and both the matches were won by Gujarat Lions. But the performance of Mumbai Indians and that too at home, will give them a tough time.
| Date | Winner | Won By | Venue |
| 16th April, 2016 | Guajrat Lions | 3 Wickets | Mumbai |
| 21st May, 2016 | Gujarat Lions | 6 Wickets | Kanpur |
Match Details: IPL 2017 Match 16: MI vs GL
Venue: Wankhede Stadium, Mumbai
Date: 16th April, 2017
Time: 4:00 pm (IST)
Toss: Mumbai Indians won the toss and opt to bowl
Result: Mumbai Indians won by 6 Wickets
Man of the Match: Nitish Rana
Playing XI for MI: Parthiv Patel (wk), Jos Buttler, Rohit Sharma (c), Nitish Rana, Kieron Pollard, Krunal Pandya, Hardik Pandya, Harbhajan Singh, Lasith Malinga, Mitchell McClenaghan, Jasprit Bumrah
Playing XI for GL: Dwayne Smith, Brendon McCullum, Jason Roy, Suresh Raina (c), Dinesh Karthik (wk), Ishan Kishan, Ravindra Jadeja, Praveen Kumar, Andrew Tye, Basil Thampi, Munaf Patel
