Mandeep Singh IPL 2021: Why is Mayank Agarwal not playing today’s IPL 2021 match vs Mumbai Indians?

Mayank Agarwal not playing: Punjab Kings have had to make a forced change ahead of their match against the defending champions.

During the 42nd match of the ongoing 14th season of the Indian Premier League between Mumbai Indians and Punjab Kings in Abu Dhabi, Mumbai Indians captain Rohit Sharma has won the toss and chose to field.

“We’ll look to bowl first. Just a team plan, nothing specific. It’s a good pitch to bat on, so pretty simple actually. As a team we do understand where we stand at the moment and we also understand that we haven’t played to the best of our potential.

“We know where we’ve made mistakes and hopefully we can correct it tonight. Because of where we stand at the moment, we have had to make some difficult changes which we didn’t want to do,” Sharma told Star Sports at the toss.

Coming on the back of three losses in a row, defending champions Indians have made a couple of changes to their Playing XI bringing in batter Saurabh Tiwary and fast bowler Nathan Coulter-Nile for batter Ishan Kishan and fast bowler Adam Milne.

Why is Mayank Agarwal not playing vs Mumbai Indians today?

Punjab Kings Lokesh Rahul admitted for the second time in a row that he was confused to make a decision at the toss. Hence, was unaffected by being asked to bat first at the Sheikh Zayed Cricket Stadium.

“I was a bit confused at the toss. Don’t mind batting first and we need to assess what a good total would be. Not much to fix, it’s important to realize that we are a team that has capitalized on good starts.

“We haven’t handled pressure really well. But when our backs are against the wall, we have done really well. We need to be a bit brave and trust our instincts. We need to trust our basics and not worry about the results,” Rahul told Star Sports at the toss.

Being asked about the changes made to their Playing XI, Rahul confirmed a solitary change in the form of batter Mandeep Singh coming in for Mayank Agarwal as the latter has a stiff neck.

Playing first IPL 2021 match, Mandeep has scored 118 runs at an average and strike rate of 13.11 and 122.92 respectively in 13 IPL innings against Mumbai over the years.