The ninth edition of the Indian Premier League is set to kick-off as defending champions Mumbai Indians take on new outfit Rising Pune Supergiants, led by India's World Cup winning skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni, in Mumbai, on Saturday.

With a more settled look and familiar with the conditions at the Wankhede Stadium, described by both Mumbai Indians captain Rohit Sharma and coach Ricky Ponting as the team's fortress, Supergiants will need to pull out all stops to stop the home side.

The hosts, who turned around a disastrous start last year after losing the opening four games, have the right personnel on paper to diffuse the challenge from Rising Pune Supergiants.

Lendl Simmons, who orchestrated the bounce-back of Mumbai Indians last season, has shown his penchant for the Wankhede track with a blistering knock for eventual champions West Indies that knocked pre-tournament favourites India out of the World T20 at the semi-final stage on March 31.

Simmons and Sharma, who has decided to open the innings, are expected to pair up at the top with people like Ambati Rayudu, new buy and England's hard-hitting wicketkeeper batsman Jos Buttler, Corey Anderson, the big-hitting Kieron Pollard and Hardik Pandya to follow up later.

Mumbai Indians would be hard-pressed to fill in the void left by the absence of the injured pace spearhead Lasith Malinga who is unlikely to be fit at least for the first half of their league campaign, as informed yesterday by Ponting at his media conference.

The vastly improved Jasprit Bumrah will need to step up and give adequate support to the likes of Anderson, Tim Southee, Mitchell McClenaghan and Marchant de Lange.

In spin, Mumbai Indians will bank immensely on their experienced off spinner Harbhajan Singh along with Karnataka's leg-spinner Shreyas Gopal and left-armer Jagadeesha Suchith.

Supergiants, on the other hand, appear to have a strong batting line-up with the likes of Ajinkya Rahane, Kevin Pietersen, Steve Smith, Mitchell Marsh and Francois du Plessis present in it, along with Dhoni.

They have a good set of all-rounders such as Albie Morkel and Irfan Pathan and a good mix of pace and spin in the bowling attack which is expected to be led by Ishant Sharma and Ravichandran Ashwin respectively.

Australian leggie Adam Zampa is also there to be called upon along with Ashwin's Tamil Nadu teammate Murugan Ashwin, who is also a wrist spinner, and left arm slow bowler Ankit Sharma of Madhya Pradesh.

* Deferred updates in compliance with Indian laws