MUMBAI: Mumbai Indians stand-in Skipper Suryakumar Yadav won the toss and opted to field first in the Indian Premier League against Kolkata Knight Riders at Wankhede Stadium, Mumbai, on Sunday.
In the absence of MI captain Rohit Sharma, who decided to sit out the match with a stomach bug, Suryakumar Yadav will lead the side on to the field. While Arjun Tendulkar will also makes his IPL debut for MI. KKR made no changes to their playing eleven.
Mumbai Indians would have been boosted with their win in their last fixture against Delhi Capitals. In contrast, Kolkata Knight Riders are coming into this match after losing to Sunrisers Hyderabad by 23 runs.
Suryakumar said at the toss, “Will love to bowl first, the wicket looks dry. The ball comes onto the bat nicely later. Rohit is out, he has a stomach bug. Time to put up a good show. We are going with one change, Duan Jansen comes in, rest all is same.”
Kolkata Knight Riders Skipper Nitish Rana said after the coin did not flip in his favour, “We were going to bat first anyways. The mood in the dressing room is good, need to improve our bowling. We believe we can chase 200-210.
The ball might turn in the second innings I think. One player can’t win you a tournament, it’s a team sport. It’s good for us, that everyone is scoring runs. We’ll target to score around 180 on this wicket, we are playing with the same team.”
Mumbai Indians (Playing XI): Ishan Kishan(w), Cameron Green, Tilak Varma, Suryakumar Yadav(c), Tim David, Nehal Wadhera, Arjun Tendulkar, Hrithik Shokeen, Piyush Chawla, Duan Jansen, Riley Meredith
Kolkata Knight Riders (Playing XI): Rahmanullah Gurbaz(w), Venkatesh Iyer, N Jagadeesan, Nitish Rana(c), Rinku Singh, Andre Russell, Sunil Narine, Shardul Thakur, Umesh Yadav, Lockie Ferguson, Varun Chakaravarthy. (ANI)