Kolkata Knight Riders open their IPL 2026 campaign against the Mumbai Indians at the Wankhede Stadium as they look to bounce back from their poor 2025 season. The Knight Riders have been pegged back by injuries; however, with a strong batting line-up, the 2024 champions are looking for a strong start to the season.
Harshit Rana is among the players that KKR are missing. Harshit, the Indian pacer, has been ruled out of the Indian Premier League 2026 due to a knee injury that he picked in the build-up to the T20 World Cup 2026.
Harshit replaced by Navdeep Saini
A few days before the start of the IPL, KKR had confirmed another Indian speedster, Navdeep Saini, as a replacement for Harshit, who underwent surgery for his injury. The IPL body had approved the replacement. With 23 wickets in 32 IPL matches played so far, Navdeep is a crucial addition for the Knight Riders. However, their bowling looks thin as Akash Deep has also been ruled out of the tournament. The speedster could not recover from his lower-back stress injury, which forced him out of the season. KKR named Saurabh Dubey as his replacement.
Mumbai Indians win toss, opt to bowl first
Mumbai Indians captain Hardik Pandya won the toss and opted to bowl first. Hardik reasoned that the greenery on the pitch was the reason behind his bowling decision. "We are going to bowl. Looks like a good track, it appears greener than it used to. Let's see how it plays. This is our fortress, the crowd is behind us and we're looking to play a good game. We started a couple of weeks earlier, have plenty of experience and a mix of youth. Rohit, Surya, Mitchell Santner - so there's no shortage of captains; I'm just excited to go out there and perform. We're going with 6 bowlers and 5 batters," Hardik said at the toss.
Meanwhile, KKR skipper Ajinkya Rahane also wanted to bowl first. "We were looking to bowl, never seen this amount of grass at Wankhede. Preparations have been good, couple of camps in Kolkata and in Mumbai as well. Know that MI is a champion team and we're looking forward to be playing against them. Just stay at the moment and don't look at the past. A couple of injuries - we're going with 6 batters and 5 bowlers. Four overseas players - Cameron Green, Finn Allen, Sunil Narine and Blessing Muzarabani," Rahane said at the toss.
Kolkata Knight Riders (Playing XI): Finn Allen, Ajinkya Rahane(c), Cameron Green, Angkrish Raghuvanshi(w), Rinku Singh, Ramandeep Singh, Anukul Roy, Sunil Narine, Varun Chakaravarthy, Vaibhav Arora, Blessing Muzarabani
Mumbai Indians (Playing XI): Rohit Sharma, Ryan Rickelton(w), Tilak Varma, Hardik Pandya(c), Sherfane Rutherford, Naman Dhir, Shardul Thakur, Mayank Markande, AM Ghazanfar, Trent Boult, Jasprit Bumrah
MI and KKR impact subs:
Kolkata Knight Riders Impact subs: Manish Pandey, Rovman Powell, Kartik Tyagi, Saurabh Dubey, Tejasvi Dahiya
Mumbai Indians Impact subs: Suryakumar Yadav, Corbin Bosch, Robin Minz, Raj Bawa, Ashwani Kum
