By Prakash Nair 
Mumbai, March 29: Mumbai Indians MI chased down 220 tonight at Wankhede and won by six wickets. Simple enough sentence. Does not quite capture what the evening actually felt like if you were sitting in that stadium or watching from your living room with a plate of dinner going cold in front of you.
Because this was not just a cricket match. This was fourteen years of frustration, and finally getting answered.
They Have Not Done This Since 2012
People throw around statistics all the time in cricket, and most of them wash over you. This one is worth pausing on.
Mumbai Indians had not won their first match of an IPL season since 2012. Not once in fourteen attempts. They would go on to win five IPL titles in that same period, which makes the stat even stranger, but there it is. Opening day wins simply did not happen for this team.
Until tonight.
Rohit Sharma and Ryan Rickelton put together a 148-run partnership at the top of the order, helping MI pull off their biggest ever successful run chase in IPL history.
The Wankhede crowd lost its mind. Deservedly so.
But First, Give KKR Their Flowers
Before this turns into a pure MI celebration piece, Kolkata Knight Riders did a lot right tonight. They really did.
The pitch had unusual grass cover on it. Ajinkya Rahane himself said before the toss that he had never seen the Wankhede looking this green in his life, and he has been playing cricket in Mumbai longer than most people reading this have been following the sport.
It did not slow KKR down one bit.
Rahane and Finn Allen went absolutely berserk in the first few overs, taking KKR past 50 before the fourth over was even finished. The kind of start that makes you put your phone down and just watch.
Allen is a funny cricketer to watch. He had been preferred over Tim Seifert for this game and repaid that faith immediately, hitting 37 runs off just 17 balls before giving his wicket away in the kind of shot that makes you both groan and nod at the same time. Brilliant while it lasted.
Rahane then kept the foot on the gas. He reached his fifty in under 30 balls, kept going hard, and was finally dismissed by Shardul Thakur for 67 off 40 balls, Thakur’s third wicket of the innings.
A captain’s knock if ever there was one.
Angkrish Raghuvanshi joined the party next. Mumbai-born, playing at the ground he grew up near, batting against MI. He hit 51 off 29 balls, found boundaries almost at will, and was eventually taken by Tilak Varma off Hardik Pandya’s bowling. The crowd gave him a warm reception even while rooting against him. That is what good cricket earns you.
Rinku Singh came in late and hit a quick 33 not out off 21 balls and KKR ended up on 220 for 4.
On most nights at most grounds, that total wins the game. Tonight was not most nights.
Cameron Green and the Weight of Rs 25 Crore
Look, nobody wants to pile on a player in his first game for a new franchise.
But when you are the most expensive overseas signing in IPL auction history, people are going to notice when things do not go to plan. Green scored 18 off 10 balls and then slapped one straight to Sherfane Rutherford at deep point off Shardul Thakur.
He will have better days. He needs to.
Shardul Thakur on Debut: Three Wickets, Zero Nerves
Not everyone has a quiet first night in a new jersey.
Shardul Thakur rocked up to his first game in blue and gold, dismissed Allen, Green, and Rahane, and finished with three wickets for 39 runs. Three of KKR’s best four batsmen. Gone. All to the same man.
Bumrah at the other end did his usual thing, giving away just 35 runs across four overs on a ground where the ball was disappearing into the stands every few deliveries. Between the two of them, they kept KKR from getting anywhere near the 240 or 250 the opening partnership had made look possible.
That restraint in the bowling was the quiet difference-maker in this result.
Then the KKR Captain Went Down
About the time MI started their chase, Ajinkya Rahane went down on the field holding his leg.
He was helped off and did not return, with Rinku Singh taking over as captain for the rest of the game.
Rinku handled it well, kept things organised, and made his changes. But losing your captain and most experienced head mid-game is never easy. The bowling rotations looked slightly less assured after that. The field placements were not quite as sharp. Small things, but in a chase like this, small things add up.
Rohit Sharma at Wankhede is simply not fair to bowlers
Here is the thing about watching Rohit Sharma bat at Wankhede against KKR specifically.
He owns this combination. Has been doing it for years. Walks out, settles in quickly, and then at some point, something clicks, and the ball just starts flying.
Tonight it was 78 off 38 balls. Six fours. Six sixes. The crowd was on their feet for most of it, and a standing ovation when he finally got out, caught by Anukul Roy at the boundary.
He did not look like a man returning from a two-month break from competitive cricket. He looked like a man who had been waiting two months to do exactly this.
That knock also pushed him past 1,161 career IPL runs against KKR, the most anyone has ever scored against the same opponent in the entire history of the tournament.
KKR have had fifteen-plus years to figure out how to stop him at his home ground. They are still working on it.
Ryan Rickelton Deserves to Be a Household Name After Tonight
Ryan Rickelton is not yet the kind of name that Indian cricket fans automatically know. That might change pretty quickly if he keeps batting like this.
The left-handed South African barely took two overs to read the surface and then launched into KKR’s bowlers with a confidence bordering on disrespect.
Vaibhav Arora got hit for back-to-back sixes. Then Sunil Narine, one of the smartest T20 bowlers alive, got deposited over deep midwicket twice inside three balls as Rickelton sped to a fifty off just 24 deliveries.
He and Rohit batted together like they had been opening for years. Running hard, rotating strike when needed, attacking when the opportunity arrived.
He was eventually run out for 81 off 43 balls, direct hit from the deep ending things. By then the game was already gone for KKR. Already over. The rest was paperwork.
Varun Chakravarthy is Going Through Something
This section is not written with any pleasure, because Varun Chakravarthy is a genuinely exciting bowler when he is at his best.
But the numbers right now are ugly and pretending otherwise would be doing readers a disservice.
He went for 48 runs in four overs tonight at an economy of 12. And across his last six T20 matches he has now given away 273 runs from 23 overs at an economy rate of 11.86, the worst for any spinner who has bowled that many balls in six back-to-back T20 games.
A year ago he was the top-ranked T20I bowler in the world. Right now he looks like someone the batsmen have totally figured out. KKR’s management will need to have some serious conversations about how to get the best out of him again, because as things stand, he is a liability more than a weapon.
Hardik Finished It. Naman Sealed It. Done.
Hardik Pandya hit a four off Narine to bring the scores level, and then Naman Dhir drove one back straight down the ground to seal the chase.
No fuss. No dropped catches or last-over panic. Just clean, authoritative cricket from a team that clearly prepared for exactly this scenario.
So, Where Does This Leave Both Teams
KKR came into this game missing Harshit Rana, Akash Deep, and Matheesha Pathirana through injury before a single ball had been bowled. Their pace attack was already half-strength, and it showed. MI’s openers targeted the bowling with an accuracy that suggested serious pre-match homework.
For the Mumbai Indians, this win matters beyond the two points. They have not won the IPL since 2020. They did not even make the final that year or after. Six years is a long wait for one of the sport’s most successful franchises.
This one game will not end that way. But the manner of the victory, the size of the chase, the composure of experienced players and new faces alike, tells you something real about where this team’s head is at.
They are not here to make up the numbers. They came to win.
IPL 2026 is barely started. Get comfortable. This Mumbai Indians team is going to be fun to watch.
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- Prakash Nair
- Prakash Nair
- Prakash Nair
- Prakash Nair
