Mumbai Indians (MI) would be roaring to make a staggering start to their IPL campaign against mighty Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR). The onus will be on MI to kick-start the IPL in a bang at their home ground. KKR on the other hand have shown faith in the veteran Ajinkya Rahane to lead the side. The clash of MI’s Hardik Pandya & KKR’s Ajinkya Rahane can be an octane one.
Pitch & Conditions & head to head
The average score at Wankhede is 180 as it’s most likely a belter of a wicket. The small square boundaries of 60-65 will make life harder for the bowlers and also there’s a huge chance of dew in the 2nd innings. Chasing team is favorite to win the match.
MI have a huge wood over KKR as they have won 24 matches out of 35 with KKR winning 11 matches. KKR had won last match at Wankhede in IPL 2024 edition
MI & KKR
It’s a fresh start for MI after IPL 2025 Qualifier 2 heart-break against PBKS. The player to watch out for MI would be Hardik Pandya whose leadership skills would be tested thoroughly. Hardik had scored 342 runs in 16 matches previous season at a staggering strike rate of 160 as he being at the finisher role can change complexion of match.
KKR had finished at IPL 2025 at 8th position with 6 wins from 14 matches. The franchise would be backing on the explosive batter Finn Allen to set the tournament on fire. Finn Allen had struck the fastest T20I hundred in recently concluded T20 WC 2026 in just 33 balls. The pressure will be on Cameron Green who was acquired by a whooping 25.20 Crores by franchise.
Probable XII of MI & KKR:
1 Rohit Sharma, 2 Quinton de Kock/Ryan Rickelton (wk), 3 Tilak Varma, 4 Suryakumar Yadav, 5 Hardik Pandya (capt), 6 Naman Dhir, 7 Sherfane Rutherford, 8 Deepak Chahar, 9 AM Ghazanfar, 10 Jasprit Bumrah, 11 Ashwani Kumar, 12 Trent Boult
1 Finn Allen (wk), 2 Ajinkya Rahane (capt), 3 Angkrish Raghuvanshi, 4 Cameron Green, 5 Rinku Singh, 6 Anukul Roy, 7 Ramandeep Singh, 8 Sunil Narine, 9 Vaibhav Arora, 10 Varun Chakravarthy, 11 Blessing Muzarabani, 12 Umran Malik/Kartik Tyag
Most likely winner
Mumbai haven’t won their first match in the history of IPL since 2012 edition. Given by that Kolkata can be considered the favorite to win the match. All eyes will be on Rohit Sharma who has clearly mentioned that he doesn’t want to play an impact player as fielding can be tough but his recent fitness has been quite promising.
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