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Mumbai Indians (MI) annihilated Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) by eight wickets to record their first win of the ongoing Indian Premier League (IPL) 2025 at the Wankhede stadium on March 31, Monday.
It was Mumbai Indians' total domination both with the bat and bowl to humble to defending champions in their first home match of the season. The match will be particularly memorable for uncapped debutant Ashwani Kumar, whose magical spell of 4 wickets for just 24 runs in his three overs spearheaded Mumbai Indians' bowling attack and helped them bundle out KKR for a paltry total of 116 runs. He was well-supported by Trent Boult, Deepak Chahar, Vignesh Puthur, and Mitchell Santner, who collectively stifled the defending champions' batting lineup, restricting them to a meager total.
Mumbai Indians' batsmen then took charge, launching a blistering assault in the run chase. An unbeaten yet powerful 41-ball 62 from Ryan Rickleton anchored the chase, as the home team effortlessly surpassed the target in under 13 overs. Despite Varun Chakravarthy's efforts to stem the flow of runs for Mumbai, Kolkata Knight Riders had little chance of defending their low total. Ryan Rickleton found his rhythm and dominated every bowler he faced, reaching his maiden IPL half-century in the process. Suryakumar Yadav then entered the fray to apply the finishing touches, scoring a rapid 27 runs off just 9 balls, culminating in a stylish win with a towering six off Andre Russell.
Ajinkya Rahane disappointed with KKR batters' flop show against MI
KKR batters crumbled before 23-year-old Ashwani Kumar's bowling wizardry. Angkrish Raghuvanshi remained their highest scorer with 26 runs off 16 balls as none of the KKR batters barring him stood up which the chips were down. KKR captain Ajinkya Rahane, who himself scored a 7-ball 11, was also disappointed with KKR's dismal batting. Rahane said it was a good wicket where 180-190 could have been a good total and one of the batter should have stayed till the end but that didn't happen
"Collective batting failure, it was a good wicket to bat on. 180-190 would have been a good total on this pitch. We expect that (here), it has good bounce. When you are fighting against the bounce, that is what we did, you have to use it sometimes - we have to learn really fast. Bowlers were trying their best but not much runs on the board. We kept on losing wickets - four in the powerplay and after that, it was difficult to consolidate. You need one batter to bat through and stay till the end but that did not happen," Rahane said in the post-match presentation.
This was KKR's second defeat in the ongoing IPL 2025. They first went down to Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) before beating Rajasthan Royals (RR) in their last match.
KKR's next match is against Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) on April 3 while Mumbai will now take on Lucknow Super Giants (LSG) on April 4.
