After two below-par performances in their first two games of the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2025, Mumbai Indians (MI) seemed to have found their footing at their home ground, Wankhede Stadium.?Taking on Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR), MI, who won the toss and opted to field, dismantled KKR's top order within the Powerplay.
Pacers Deepak Chahar, Trent Boult, and Hardik Pandya struck early creating a huge KKR batting collapse with?MI debutant Ashwani Kumar being the star picking 4 wickets. In fact, KKR's score at the end of 7 overs was just 45 runs for the loss of 5 wickets. Now, it has gone to 8 wickets within 13 overs.
Boult struck early, dismissing Sunil Narine (0 off 2) with a brilliant inswinger in the first over, followed by Quinton de Kock's departure (1 off 3) in the next over, courtesy of Chahar. KKR attempted to counterattack and shift the pressure onto MI with skipper Ajinkya Rahane (11 off 7) and Angkrish Raghuvanshi (26 off 16) at the crease, but the strategy backfired.
They lost four wickets inside the powerplay, followed by Angkrish, who had been looking in good form. In this crisis, impact substitute Manish Pandey stepped in, as KKR desperately needed someone to anchor the innings and rebuild their chase.
However, MI continued their dominance, quickly dismissing Venkatesh Iyer (3 off 9), Rinku Singh (17 off 14), Manish Pandey (19 off 14) and?Andre Russell (5 off 11) in succession.
Currently, after 14 overs,?Ramandeep Singh and Harshit Rana are at the crease with the score reading 94 for 8.
Seeing KKR's batting collapse, netizens, especially on X (formerly Twitter), quickly reacted, discussing the performance of the defending champions.
One wrote, "KKR throwing wickets away .. Need a partnership!"
Another wrote,"Whata batting collapse of KKR"
One said, "we are back to basics. Batting collapse as usual"
Another said, "The most brainless batting ever from this KKR team".
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?
Impact Subs: Anrich Nortje, Anukul Roy, Manish Pandey, Vaibhav Arora, Luvnith Sisodia?
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?
Impact Subs: Rohit Sharma, Corbin Bosch, Raj Bawa, Robin Minz, Satyanarayana Raju?