Mumbai Indians cruised to a six-wicket victory in their IPL 2026 opener against Kolkata Knight Riders, at Wankhede Stadium on Monday. Chasing 221 runs, MI raced to 224/4 in 19.1 overs, courtesy of openers Ryan Rickelton (81) and Rohit Sharma (78). Taking to X, former India cricketer Aakash Chopra pointed out two tactical observations from the match in the first innings when KKR were batting.
Chopra stated that only two MI bowlers bowled back-to-back overs, which were Hardik Pandya and Jasprit Bumrah. Hardik’s spell came in the opening stages, and KKR were in cruise control mode then, but failed to score a single run through the offside.
“Two interesting things to note in yesterday’s first innings. Only two bowlers for MI bowed back to back over. That too—2 over spells. Boom and Hardik. 2-4 for Hardik. 18-20th for Boom,” he said.
“And KKR didn’t score a single run through the off-side in the first 5 overs. And they were cruising. Can’t remember any other such 5-over phase in T20 recently,” he added.
Reacting to Chopra’s explanation, one fan wrote, “That off-side stat is insane, Aakash sir! It shows MI bowled completely to a set leg-side trap, but KKR batters basically hacked the angles. For a team to cruise with zero off-side runs means MI’s execution failed drastically. Pure tactical anomaly!”
Agreeing with the fan, Chopra responded, “Incredible it was. Pitch conditions. Bowling plans. But yes, an anomaly.”
In the first innings, Ajinkya Rahane (67) and Angkrish Raghuvanshi (51) got half-centuries as KKR reached 220/4 in 20 overs. For MI, Shardul Thakur took three wickets, and Hardik bagged a dismissal. For KKR in the run chase, Sunil Narine, Kartik Tyagi and Vaibhav Arora took a dismissal each.
