Rock-solid GT top three vs red-hot MI quicks - who will blink first?

In many whodunnits, a character - while sifting through several clues - happens to superimpose two completely different images on top of the other, and somehow the true picture emerges out of nowhere.

Similarly, in Tuesday's IPL clash, there are several such threads about the strengths of Mumbai Indians (MI) and Gujarat Titans (GT), two teams that have taken completely different routes to reach 14 points. But when you place a certain set of numbers about the two teams next to one another, it appears this game could perhaps be decided in the battle between GT's top three and MI's pace attack in the early overs.

That GT's top three of Shubman Gill, B Sai Sudharsan and Jos Buttler do their heavy lifting is not a new revelation. Right from their first game, at least one of them has scored a half-century in their 10 innings. In five of those, at least two have crossed the 50 mark, always helping GT set a strong base. Fifty-five matches later, they remain the only team in this IPL to have used the same top order throughout.

What has worked for the opening pair is that both Sai Sudharsan and Gill are also red-ball openers, which has equipped them with the technique to negotiate the swing and seam of the new ball. And their domestic experience over the years has prepared them for the slower black-soil surfaces, like the one they played on against MI in Ahmedabad, where the openers had scored a steady stand of 78 in 51 balls to set the base for a near-200 score. This stability, along with Buttler marrying his boundary-hitting with consistency, has meant that GT's top three have averaged 57.56 this season. That's a whopping 18 runs more than the next best.

This opening pair could give the impression that they are both anchors, and they might even be compared to the ball-bashing openers in other teams, but they have ensured that this average has not come at the cost of scoring quickly. The combined strike rate of their top three stands at an impressive 161.32, the third-best this IPL after Punjab Kings (PBKS) and Lucknow Super Giants (LSG).

"Those two guys have been very, very consistent and not just those two, the top three have scored 75% of their runs," MI head coach Mahela Jayawardene had his stat ready while speaking of the top three's challenge ahead of the game. "So that's a challenge our bowling unit will have, and we'll have to work towards that. That's how their team is being built up and that's something we'll look at deeply."

Now superimpose all that with MI's new ball-bowling. Nobody strikes as often as Trent Boult does in the first over of the IPL, and his partner Deepak Chahar is joint-third on the list. The return of Jasprit Bumrah to full fitness has also allowed Boult an extra over with the new ball and not think too much about the death overs. Boult and Chahar together have struck so well, stepping up on each other's off days just like Gill and Sai Sudharsan, that they have led the way in bowling out their last two oppositions, and three of their last six.

In that streak of six wins on the trot, MI's overall bowling has hit a different level too, with captain Hardik Pandya striking regularly in the middle overs and the spin of Karn Sharma fetching them another six wickets. The result? MI's average of 23.23 and economy rate of 8.13 are the best in the span of 24 matches that have been played, starting from the day MI won the first of those six back to back games.

The addition of Bumrah, at first-change, has further compounded oppositions' headache: lose early wickets and then take on the best T20 bowler going around. MI's fast bowling trinity has been so good, even on away grounds, that their tally of 34 wickets in the first 10 overs is better than anyone's this IPL, along with the best average (27.76) and the third-best economy rate (8.58).

When MI had traveled to Ahmedabad earlier in the season, GT had dished out a black-soil pitch to make scoring tougher for MI batters who are more used to the red soil at the Wankhede. On Tuesday evening, GT may also enjoy scoring at Wankhede, but it's also a ground where the MI get a lot of success. Who will blink first?