Toss Mumbai Indians chose to bowl vs Kolkata Knight Riders
Mumbai Indians (MI) captain Hardik Pandya won the toss and chose to bowl in their IPL 2026 opener against Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) at the Wankhede Stadium.
MI handed a debut to Afghanistan mystery spinner AM Ghazanfar, alongside Shardul Thakur and Sherfane Rutherford, who are also playing their first games for the franchise. MI went 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. The fourth overseas player in the MI XI was Trent Boult. Will Jacks and Mitchell Santner are yet to join the MI squad.
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 was not 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 he had "never seen so much of grass at Wankhede". KKR went with three overseas debutants in Finn Allen, who was selected over Tim Seifert, fast bowler Blessing Muzarabani, and allrounder Cameron Green. The veteran Sunil Narine was the fourth overseas pick. Angkrish Raghuvanshi will take the wicketkeeping gloves for KKR. 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.
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