Mumbai head into their third Ranji Trophy match starting today, against Himachal Pradesh, knowing that an outright win will do their fortunes a lot of good.

After two games, the defending champions are currently third in their group with four points and a win in this game will help avoid a lot of headaches as far as qualifying for the play-offs are concerned. Gujarat and Tamil Nadu with six points each are first and second respectively.

"We are not looking too much into the future and want to take things one at a time. But at the same time, we don't want to be left with having a lot to do at the end and would love to get an outright win here. HP can be tough opponents but we are confident of doing well," Mumbai coach Praveen Amre said.

The team will also be buoyed by the return of Abhishek Nayar, Rohit Sharma and Ajinkya Rahane. The trio was a part of the Board President's XI's warm-up game against Sri Lanka at the same time when Mumbai played Orissa last week. The warm-up game was abandoned due to rains.