Mumbai: Mumbai Indians team will face Kolkata Knight Riders to end the five-year title drought in the Indian Premier League. However, KKR definitely faces some problems in this first match of the season, but it is expected that it will give a tough competition to Mumbai Indians. Mumbai Indians had won the title five times between 2013 and 2020, but have not been able to become champions in the last few years.
This time his eyes will be on winning his sixth title and for this he will leave no stone unturned to make a great start. Last year, the Hardik Pandya-led team finished third after losing to Punjab Kings in Qualifier 2, but this time Mumbai Indians are coming on the field with good preparation. Rohit Sharma will be eager to return to form. Apart from Rohit, there are many star players in his team, including India's T20 World Cup winning team captain Suryakumar Yadav, Pandya, Tilak Verma and Jasprit Bumrah.
Mumbai Indians team looks balanced
Mumbai Indians also have many excellent foreign players, the prominent ones being Ryan Rickelton, Sherfane Rutherford, Corbin Bosch, New Zealand captain Mitchell Santner, Will Jacques, AM Ghazanfar and Trent Boult. The pairing of Bumrah and Bolt can prove dangerous. Mumbai Indians have two experienced Indian bowlers in the form of Shardul Thakur and Deepak Chahar, while Naman Dheer will once again try to play the role of finisher well. Last year he did complete justice to his role.
Therefore, the biggest challenge for Mumbai will be to prepare a proper combination in the playing eleven. His team will be determined to win some matches in the beginning as it has often failed to get off to a good start. Due to playing in Mumbai, Kolkata Knight Riders will also have some local players in the form of captain Ajinkya Rahane and young Angkrish Raghuvanshi, but their bowling attack looks weak, which Mumbai Indians will try to take full advantage of.
KKR's bowling has weakened due to injury.
KKR's bowling attack was looking good at the time of the auction but on the instructions of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI), the franchise had dropped Bangladesh fast bowler Mustafizur Rahman while its two Indian fast bowlers Akash Deep and Harshit Rana have been ruled out of the tournament due to injury.
Zimbabwe's fast bowler Blessing Muzarabani is talented but he may be under pressure. In such a situation, the big responsibility of the bowling department will have to be shouldered by Varun Chakraborty who could not perform as expected in the T20 World Cup. KKR team also includes two former CSK players Rachin Ravindra and Mathisha Pathirana. Tim Seifert is the only starting option as a wicket-keeper batsman, while they also have two excellent all-rounders in the form of Cameron Green and Sunil Narine.
The teams are as follows:
Mumbai Indians: Hardik Pandya (captain), Quinton de Kock (wicketkeeper), Danish Malewar, Robin Minze (wicketkeeper), Ryan Rickelton (wicketkeeper), Sherfane Rutherford, Rohit Sharma, Suryakumar Yadav, Atharva Ankolekar, Raj Bawa, Corbin Bosch, Will Jacques, Mayank Rawat, Naman Dheer, Mitchell Santner, Shardul Thakur, Tilak Verma, Ashwini Kumar, Trent Bolt, Jasprit Bumrah, Deepak Chahar, AM Ghazanfar, Mayank Markandey, Mohammad Izhar, Raghu Sharma.
Kolkata Knight Riders: Ajinkya Rahane (captain), Rinku Singh (vice-captain), Finn Allen, Tejashwi Dahiya (wicketkeeper), Manish Pandey, Rovman Powell, Angkrish Raghuvanshi, Ramandeep Singh, Sarthak Ranjan, Tim Seifert (wicketkeeper), Rahul Tripathi, Daksh Kamra, Cameron Green, Sunil Narine, Rachin Ravindra, Anukul Roy, Vaibhav Arora, Saurabh Dubey, Kartik Tyagi, Blessing Muzarabani, Mathisha Pathirana, Navdeep Saini, Prashant Solanki, Umran Malik, Varun Chakraborty.
The match will start at 7:30 pm Indian time.
