Mumbai Indians skipper Hardik Pandya won the toss and elected to bowl first in their first home game of the season against Kolkata Knight Riders. The defending champions, KKR, suffered a loss in their campaign opener against RCB at home but bounced back in style against RR in Guwahati. Their bowlers got hammered in their first game against RCB but put in a collective performance against RR. Quinton de Kock stole the limelight with the bat against RR with a blistering 61-ball 97 to power his side to an emphatic victory.
MI’s openers in Rohit Sharma and Ryan Rickelton have failed in both outings. MI have always been slow starters and they haven’t been able to get the monkey off their back as they have started this year's campaign with two losses. They haven’t been able to win an opening game since 2012. They will hope that returning home for this game will provide them solace and an opportunity to reinvent themselves. MI have handed a debut to 23-year-old pacer Ashwani Kumar, while Vignesh Puthur and Will Jacks also returned to the team. This will be MI's first home game, having lost two on the trot away.
Kolkata Knight Riders Impact Subs: Anrich Nortje, Anukul Roy, Manish Pandey, Vaibhav Arora, Luvnith Sisodia
Mumbai Indians Impact Subs: Rohit Sharma, Corbin Bosch, Raj Bawa, Robin Minz, Satyanarayana Raju
Teams:
Kolkata Knight Riders (Playing XI): Quinton de Kock(w), Sunil Narine, Venkatesh Iyer, Ajinkya Rahane(c), Rinku Singh, Angkrish Raghuvanshi, Andre Russell, Ramandeep Singh, Spencer Johnson, Harshit Rana, Varun Chakaravarthy
Mumbai Indians (Playing XI): Ryan Rickelton, Will Jacks(w), Suryakumar Yadav, Tilak Varma, Hardik Pandya(c), Naman Dhir, Mitchell Santner, Deepak Chahar, Trent Boult, Ashwani Kumar, Vignesh Puthur
