Mumbai Indians vs Kolkata Knight Riders at Wankhede Stadium

Mumbai Indians won the match by 5 wickets against Kolkata Knight Riders on their home turf 

Mumbai Indians won the toss and chose to bowl first, but today skipper Rohit Sharma is not available for the first half so, Surya Kumar Yadav is the stand-in Captain for Mumbai. Rohit Sharma was the Impact player for the match. Wherein Kolkata Knight Riders played with an unchanged team. 

One of the biggest pieces of news about today’s match was the debutant news of Arjun Tendulkar at his home ground. He got his IPL cap from Rohit Sharma and got fired up to take on the field. Jofra Archer was still not available for Mumbai Indians. In support of the home franchise initiative called Education and Sports for All, the ground was filled with 19,000 young girls from around 36 NGOs in the city and Harmanpreet Kaur (Skipper of the Indian Women Cricket Team and Mumbai Indians WPL) was also present during the toss. 

In the first innings, Kolkata was slow in the start, till the time Venkatesh Iyer came onto the field and fired up at sixth gear. He came and conquered, and played a fabulous knock of 104 runs by 51 balls with a strike rate of 203.92 which included six boundaries and nine maximums. Apart from Iyer, Shardul Thakur, Rinku Singh, and Andre Russell played small cameos to put up a total of 185/6 from 20 overs.

From the bowling point of view, the debutant Arjun Tendulkar remained wicketless but bowled a very economical spell. Cameron Green, Duan Jansen, Piyush Chawla, and Riley Meredith took 1 wicket each. And Hrithik Shokeen took 2 wickets in his spell. 

The second innings started with a bang as the Impact player Rohit Sharma entered the field and showcased his intentions of winning right from the start. But was not able to amplify his innings. The partnership between Rohit and Ishan in the powerplay was their hook to be on the winning end.

Then Ishan Kishan took the job and made his first half-century in IPL 2024 from 25 balls with a strike rate of 232.00 which included five boundaries and five maximums. The stand-in captain Surya Kumar Yadav also fired up and looked back in form while playing his knock of 43 runs from 25 balls. Although he missed out on his half-century but played an entertaining knock for the team and the fans.

Tilak Varma and Tim David both played cameo roles of 30 and 24 runs respectively.  Kolkata’s bowling unit was not up to the mark in the game today, Suyash Sharma took 2 wickets in his spell. Shardul Thakur, Varun Chakravarthy, and Lockie Ferguson took 1 wicket each. Sunil Narine, Umesh Yadav, and Andre Russell remained wicketless. Although Narine remained wicketless, he gave away 41 runs which cost Kolkata the match.  

It was the first match of the doubleheader Sunday and Mumbai Indians were able to keep their winning streak alive by winning against Kolkata at Wankhade Stadium. The Player of the Match was Venkatesh Iyer for his beautiful knock of 104 runs. This is the second straight win for the Mumbai Indians, but more importantly, their big names are now starting to come into form. Surya’s scores were not up to the mark till now but today’s match showcased a glimpse of what is about to come.