Mumbai, meanwhile, will be deprived of the services of Lasith Malinga, the spearhead of the attack, who is nursing a sore back. Malinga is still in Sri Lanka and will reach Mumbai only on Friday to link up with the squad members still there. We're just hoping for a speedy recovery, and hopefully he'll be okay for game three, said Ricky Ponting, the Mumbai captain.Mumbai's foreign picks will also demand some thought. With Malinga unavailable, Mitchell Johnson could make his IPL debut, while Ponting and Kieron Pollard will slot in automatically. The final slot could well go to an allrounder, with a greater premium on batting skills than bowling, since Mumbai's bowling attack has a well-rounded look to it even without Malinga, with Munaf Patel, Harbhajan Singh and Pragyan Ojha slotted in.With major match-winners missing and new captains on either side, both teams will enter the contest with a fresh look.Mumbai do have the advantage of Anil Kumble as the chief mentor. Kumble, who spent the past five years in the IPL with Bangalore first as player and then as mento, will doubtless have considerable inside knowledge to share on how best to tackle Bangalore's main men. However, the final say in what is a potentially enthralling match could well come down to Bangalore's unpredictable weather. Rains have lashed the city in the week leading up to the match, and the forecast for Thursday is for partly cloudy skies.In Kohli, Bangalore have as captain the man who could well be the heir to Ponting in international cricket. Like Ponting, Kohli was young when he made his international debut, is brash and unafraid to play hard, is spoken of as a future international captain and, most importantly, possesses exceptional batting ability.
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