Mumbai Indians and Kolkata Knight Riders are competing in the 51st match of the Indian Premier League (IPL) at the Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai on Friday, 3rd May.
MI won the toss and elected to bowl first, with Hardik Pandya revealing that the five-time champions have made one alteration to their playing XI, dropping Mohammad Nabi and bringing in Naman Dhir.
However, Rohit Sharma is not included in the playing XI and is expected to feature as an impact player, although MI have also included three overseas players. On the other hand, KKR will be without Harshit Rana, who has been suspended for one match for breaching the code of conduct.
Rohit’s absence from the playing XI is significant news, but surprisingly, Hardik didn’t provide any information regarding the former MI captain.
“It’s always about playing for pride, it looks quite tough for us but at the same time, we want to play good cricket, feels good to be back home. Looks like a good track, it’s a fresh wicket so thought that bowling first will be good,” he said at the toss.
Rohit is close to reaching 11,500 T20 runs, needing only 29 more runs. The ex-MI captain has scored 11,471 runs in 436 matches, averaging 30.83 with a strike rate of 134.39.
Meanwhile, KKR aims to end their losing streak at the Wankhede Stadium. Their last victory away in Mumbai was in 2012, when Gautam Gambhir’s team secured a 32-run win.
Playing XI – MI vs KKR
Mumbai Indians: Ishan Kishan (wk), Hardik Pandya (c), Suryakumar Yadav, Tilak Varma, Nehal Wadhera, Tim David, Gerald Coetzee, Naman Dhir, Piyush Chawla, Jasprit Bumrah, Nuwan Thushara.
Impact Subs: Rohit Sharma, Shivalik Sharma, Dewald Brevis, Shams Mulani, Romario Shepherd.
Kolkata Knight Riders: Philip Salt (wk), Sunil Narine, Angkrish Raghuvanshi, Andre Russell, Shreyas Iyer (c), Venkatesh Iyer, Rinku Singh, Ramandeep Singh, Mitchell Starc, Vaibhav Arora, Varun Chakaravarthy.
Impact Sub: Anukul Roy, Srikar Bharat, Manish Pandey, Sherfane Rutherford, Chetan Sakariya
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