Mumbai Indians trounce Kolkata Knight Riders. Debutant Ashwani Kumar creates history

Mumbai Indians have broken their losing streak by finally winning their first match of the season. Cricket was back at the Wankhede. Mumbai Indians, with a strong record against the Kolkata Knight Riders, were full of confidence. They justified it with their dominating performance. Hardik Pandya won the toss and asked KKR to bat first. The MI captain cited dew as a possible reason for his decision.

As it turned out, dew or not, MI had an easy target to achieve. Trent Boult rocked the KKR innings in the very first over by dismissing Sunil Narine. In the next over, Deepak Chahar dismissed Quinton de Kock to raise further concerns for KKR. However, what followed was even more dramatic. Making his IPL debut, Ashwani Kumar showed his skills on the grand stage.

The left-arm pacer dismissed Ajinkya Rahane on his first ball. He also developed a chance against Venkatesh Iyer. But it was dropped. In his next spell, he took more wickets. He dismissed Rinku Singh, Manish Pandey, and Andre Russell to break the backbone of KKR batting. No MI bowler went home without picking up a wicket. KKR ended up being dismissed for 116 runs in 16.2 overs.

MI demolish KKR:

Mumbai Indians vs Kolkata Knight Riders– 12th Match
Wankhede Stadium, Mumbai

KKR 116 (20)
MI 121/2 (12.5)

Mumbai Indians win by 8 wickets
Player of the match- Ashwani Kumar

MI came out all guns blazing. Ryan Rickelton scored his first IPL half-century. He remained not out till the end, scoring 62 runs in 41 balls. Rohit Sharma was dismissed cheaply again. Andre Russell took his wicket as Sharma was dismissed for 13 runs. Will Jacks played a scratchy inning and was dismissed for 16 runs in 17 balls. Russell was the one picking up the wicket again.

It was all that KKR could celebrate, as Suryakumar Yadav was the next batter in. Yadav showed his class as he knocked bowlers around. Completing the chase with a six, SKY scored 27 runs off just 9 balls. MI chased down the total in just 12.5 runs, handing KKR a big defeat.

With this, MI have defeated KKR 24 times in the IPL, the most against a team. It also includes 10 wins for MI against KKR at Wankhede, another record.

Hardik Pandya, MI captain: Very satisfying to win, especially at home. The way we did it, as a group, everyone chipped in – can’t be happier. It’s always a challenge of picking one guy here and there. With our team it’s pretty sorted with the players who we are backing. This wicket just offered a bit more and we thought Ashwani can come in and bowl the way he bowled. First of all, it’s all because of the scouts.

All MI scouts have gone all the places and picked these young kids. We played a practice game and it looked like he had that zip and late swing, had a different action and plus he is a leftie. The way he took that wicket of Russell was a very crucial wicket. And especially, how he started with that catch of Quinton. Was great to see a fast bowler jumping that high. As I mentioned earlier, it’s a great sign for everyone to chip in and kick of the tournament for us.

Ajinkya Rahane, KKR captain: Collective batting failure. It was a good wicket to bat on as I mentioned in the toss. 180-190 would have been good on this wicket. It has a very good bounce. Sometimes you have to use the pace and bounce. We got to learn really fast from this game. Couldn’t do much with the ball. They tried their best. But not much runs on the board. We kept on losing wickets. Four wickets in the powerplay. It was difficult to consolidate and get that total on the board. You need that partnership going. You need one batsman to stay till the end.

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