Five-time champions Mumbai Indians have won the toss and have opted to bowl first against Kolkata Knight Riders in their IPL 2026 opener on Sunday. MI made it to the playoffs in the previous season but failed to make it to the final 2. The team has two T20 World Cup winning captains in the form of Rohit Sharma and Suryakumar Yadav. MI are going ahead with 6 bowlers and 5 batters, with Jasprit Bumrah being in the playing XI.
KKR captain Ajinkya Rahane revealed that he too would have wanted to bowl first. KKR too are going with 6 bowlers and 5 batters, with Cameron Green, Blessing Muzarabani and Sunil Narine being the overseas players.
MI vs KKR playing XIs
Mumbai Indians: Rohit Sharma, Ryan Rickelton(w), Tilak Varma, Hardik Pandya(c), Sherfane Rutherford, Naman Dhir, Shardul Thakur, Mayank Markande, AM Ghazanfar, Trent Boult, Jasprit Bumrah
Impact players: Suryakumar Yadav, Corbin Bosch, Robin Minz, Raj Bawa, Ashwani Kumar
Kolkata Knight Riders: Finn Allen, Ajinkya Rahane(c), Cameron Green, Angkrish Raghuvanshi(w), Rinku Singh, Ramandeep Singh, Anukul Roy, Sunil Narine, Varun Chakaravarthy, Vaibhav Arora, Blessing Muzarabani
Impact players: Manish Pandey, Rovman Powell, Kartik Tyagi, Saurabh Dubey, Tejasvi Dahiya
T20 World Cup-winning captain Suryakuar Yadav has been left out of the playing XI. Instead, he has been named on the list of impact players. Although SKY scored 717 runs in IPL 2025, he had a sub-par T20 World Cup 2026 campaign. Rohit Sharma is all set to open with Ryan Rickleton, which means Quinton de Kock has been left out of the playing XI. Mayank Markande and Allah Ghazanfar are the two specialist spinners in the side while Bumrah and Boult will comprise of the spin department apart from skipper Pandya.
KKR have a new opening combo in the form of Rahane and Allen. The latter had a phenomenal T20 World Cup 2026 and is esxpected to replicate his feat in the tournament. Their weakened pace-department comprises of the likes of Blessing, Arora and Green. This means Umran Malik will continue to warm the bench.
MI vs KKR squads for IPL 2026
Mumbai Indians: Rohit Sharma, Quinton de Kock(w), Tilak Varma, Suryakumar Yadav, Hardik Pandya(c), Sherfane Rutherford, Shardul Thakur, Corbin Bosch, Deepak Chahar, Jasprit Bumrah, Trent Boult, Raj Bawa, Robin Minz, Naman Dhir, Ryan Rickelton, AM Ghazanfar, Mayank Markande, Danish Malewar, Ashwani Kumar, Mohammed Salahuddin Izhar, Will Jacks, Mitchell Santner, Mayank Rawat, Atharva Ankolekar, Raghu Sharma
Kolkata Knight Riders: Finn Allen, Ajinkya Rahane(c), Cameron Green, Tim Seifert(w), Rovman Powell, Angkrish Raghuvanshi, Rinku Singh, Ramandeep Singh, Anukul Roy, Sunil Narine, Varun Chakaravarthy, Kartik Tyagi, Umran Malik, Rahul Tripathi, Manish Pandey, Vaibhav Arora, Rachin Ravindra, Blessing Muzarabani, Navdeep Saini, Prashant Solanki, Daksh Kamra, Sarthak Ranjan, Tejasvi Dahiya, Saurabh Dubey
Cricket
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