Former Mumbai Indians skipper Rohit Sharma has not been named in the team's playing XI for the second time this season. MI are facing Kolkata Knight Riders at Eden Gardens in their second last match of the tournament with playoff hopes already gone.
The KKR vs MI clash started at 9:15 PM after a significant delay due to rain. While KKR made one change to their Playing XI, MI skipper Hardik Pandya confirmed that they are going with the same team.
"We are going to bowl. Just want to see how the pitch behaves. It has been under covers for two days. We all are aware of the stats, but you got to turn up and play good cricket on the day. Same team," Hardik said at the toss.
"I tried it another time (toss), still it came down as heads (smiles at his record on losing tosses). It's part and parcel but it such games it's crucial. Not going to take those excuses though. We want the Q next to our team. Nitish comes in for Angkrish," Shreyas Iyer said at the flip of the coin.
Rohit is named on the Impact players list and not in the starting XI as MI are bowling first. Notably, he was also used as an Impact player when MI faced KKR in their previous meeting in Mumbai on May 3. Rohit had come out to bat later when MI began their run-chase.
Mumbai Indians (Playing XI): Ishan Kishan(w), Naman Dhir, Suryakumar Yadav, Tilak Varma, Nehal Wadhera, Hardik Pandya(c), Tim David, Anshul Kamboj, Piyush Chawla, Jasprit Bumrah, Nuwan Thushara
Kolkata Knight Riders (Playing XI): Philip Salt(w), Sunil Narine, Venkatesh Iyer, Shreyas Iyer(c), Rinku Singh, Nitish Rana, Andre Russell, Ramandeep Singh, Mitchell Starc, Harshit Rana, Varun Chakaravarthy
Mumbai Indians Impact Subs: Rohit Sharma, Shams Mulani, Shivalik Sharma, Mohammad Nabi, Kumar Kartikeya
Kolkata Knight Riders Impact Subs: Anukul Roy, Vaibhav Arora, Suyash Sharma, Rahmanullah Gurbaz, Angkrish Raghuvanshi
