At the Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai, the Mumbai Indians defeated the Kolkata Knight Riders handily to start their IPL 2025 points standings.
As he typically does, Trent Boult opened the scoring in the opening over of the game.
By the time the pitch opened up, KKR had lost four wickets as Deepak Chahar continued to apply pressure throughout the powerplay.
In actuality, even though KKR batted first, they had to deploy their Impact Player to bring in an additional batter. However, Ashwani Kumar (4/24), who had grabbed a wicket with his first ball, destroyed KKR’s middle order, thus the move was ineffective. The Knight Riders were eventually knocked out for a pitiful 116.
Ryan Rickelton (62* off 41) chose to bring his best game and dominated the chase, making it even easy for MI. Suryakumar Yadav helped Rickelton chase down the goal in just 12.5 overs with a spectacular finale, despite the other top three players providing little assistance.
Here are the most important numbers from the game.
1 – Trent Boult has the most wickets by any bowler in the first over of the innings in IPL with 30. Bhuvneshwar Kumar is close behind with 27.
3 – Deepak Chahar is now the third highest wicket-taker in the powerplay in the IPL. Bhuvneshwar Kumar leads the pack with 73, while Trent Boult (63), Chahar (61) and Sandeep Sharma (60) are in a neck-to-neck contest.
10 – Ashwani Kumar became the tenth player to take a wicket off the first ball that he bowled on his IPL debut. Of these ten, three were playing for MI.
15 – Ashwani Kumar is the fifteenth player to take a wicket off the first ball that he bowled in his IPL career, regardless of the concerned match being his debut. This list of fifteen also famously includes Adam Gilchrist.
4 – Ashwani Kumar’s bowling figures are the fourth best by any player on IPL debut and the best on IPL debut by an Indian player. The best bowling figures on IPL debut are also the best bowling figures in IPL ever – 6/12 by Alzarri Joseph against SRH in 2019. Andrew Tye is the only other player to take a fifer in his first IPL match.
Incidentally, Joseph was playing for MI in that match and also took a wicket off the first ball he bowled.
The previous best bowling figures by an Indian player on IPL debut were Amit Singh’s 3/9 against PBKS in 2019. Singh also features on the list of players to take a wicket with the first ball they bowled in the IPL.
Logically, Kumar’s figures are the second best by any player in their first match for MI in the IPL.
5 – Suryakumar Yadav became the fifth Indian player to cross the milestone of 8,000 runs in T20s. Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma, Shikhar Dhawan and Suresh Raina are ahead of him.
2 – By the number of balls taken, Yadav is the second fastest to 8,000 T20 runs, only behind Andre Russell.
3 – Among the 35 players with 8,000 or more T20 runs, Suryakumar Yadav’s strike-rate of 152.28 is the third highest. Only Andre Russell and Glenn Maxwell are ahead of him.
1 – MI registered their 24th win in IPL matches against KKR which is the highest by one team against another in the league. The next best is CSK’s 21 wins over RCB tied with KKR’s own 21 wins over PBKS.
1 – MI now have the most wins by any team at a single stadium in the IPL. This match was MI’s 53rd win at the Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai. KKR with 52 wins at their own home ground of the Eden Gardens in Kolkata are a close second.
1 – This match marked MI’s tenth win over KKR at the Wankhede Stadium in the IPL. This is the most that one team has beaten another at a single ground in the league. The next best is KKR’s nine over PBKS at the Eden Gardens in Kolkata.
India
