Toss: Mumbai Indians choose to bowl vs Kolkata Knight Riders
Mumbai Indians captain Hardik Pandya won the toss and had no hesitation in electing to bowl in their IPL 2026 opener against Kolkata Knight Riders at the Wankhede Stadium.
MI handed a debut cap to Afghanistan mystery spinner AM Ghazanfar, alongside Shardul Thakur and Sherfane Rutherford, who are also playing their first games for the franchise. MI have gone with Ryan Rickelton over the experienced Quinton de Kock in their starting XI. Rickelton had a solid IPL 2025 for MI, finishing with 388 runs in 14 innings and MI have kept their faith in him. The fourth overseas player in the MI unit is Trent Boult.
Jasprit Bumrah will lead the fast bowling unit and has Shardul and Boult with him. Mayank Markande and Ghazanfar are the two spinners. Suryakumar Yadav has not been named in the bowling first XI and is likely come in as the Impact Player.
“Looks like a good track, looks a bit greener than it is used to, so let’s see,” Hardik said at the toss. “This is our fortress, this is our ground and we hope we can entertain the crowd. We started a couple of weeks earlier and the boys have got enough time to prepare.”
KKR captain Ajinkya Rahane also said that he has “never seen so much of grass at Wankhede”. KKR are going with three overseas debutants in Finn Allen, who has been selected over Tim Seifert and will open the batting, fast bowler Blessing Muzarabani and allrounder Cameron Green. The veteran Sunil Narine is the fourth overseas pick. Angkrish Raghuvanshi will take the wicketkeeping gloves for the first time in the IPL. Kartik Tyagi could come in as the Impact Player.
MI have won 24 of their 35 games against KKR. Their record at the Wankhede Stadium is even better, with MI having a 10-2 lead, although since 2024, KKR have the 2-1 head-to-head lead.
Playing XIs
Mumbai Indians: 1 Rohit Sharma, 2 Ryan Rickelton* (wk), 3 Tilak Varma, 4 Hardik Pandya (capt), 5 Sherfane Rutherford*, 6 Naman Dhir, 7 Shardul Thakur, 8 Mayank Markande, 9 AM Ghazanfar*, 10 Jasprit Bumrah, 11 Trent Boult*
Impact Subs: Suryakumar Yadav, Corbin Bosch, Robin Minz, Raj Bawa, Ashwani Kumar
Kolkata Knight Riders: 1 Finn Allen*, 2 Ajinkya Rahane (capt), 3 Cameron Green*, 4 Angkrish Raghuvanshi (wk), 5 Rinku Singh, 6 Ramandeep Singh, 7 Anukul Roy, 8 Sunil Narine*, 9 Vaibhav Arora, 10 Varun Chakravarthy, 11 Blessing Muzarabani*
Impact subs: Manish Pandey, Tejasvi Singh, Kartik Tyagi, Saurabh Dubey, Rovman Powell