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Mumbai Indians were without skipper Rohit Sharma as they took on Kolkata Knight Riders in the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2023 clash on Sunday. At the time of the toss, it was Rohit’s deputy Suryakumar Yadav who walked out alongside Kolkata captain Nitish Rana. After winning the toss and opting to bat first for his side, Surya was asked about the reason behind Rohit’s absence from the match by Ravi Shastri. The stand-in MI skipper explained that the Hitman was out of the match due to a stomach bug.
“Will love to bowl first, the wicket looks dry. The ball comes on to the bat nicely later. Rohit is out, he has a stomach bug. Time to put up a good show. We are going with one change, Duan Jansen comes in, rest all is same,” Surya said at the time of toss after putting his side to bat first.
KKR captain Rana, when asked what he would’ve preferred to do on this pitch, said that he would’ve wanted to bat first.
“We were going to bat first anyways. The mood in the dressing room is good, need to improve our bowling. We believe we can chase 200-210. The ball might turn in the second innings I think. One player can’t win you a tournament, it’s a team sport. It’s good for us, that everyone is scoring runs. We’ll target to score around 180 on this wicket, we are playing with the same team,” said Rana.
With Rohit out, the Mumbai Indians included uncapped Arjun Tendulkar in the playing XI, giving him his debut cap, having bought him in the IPL 2021 auction.
Kolkata Knight Riders Playing XI: Rahmanullah Gurbaz(w), Venkatesh Iyer, N Jagadeesan, Nitish Rana(c), Rinku Singh, Andre Russell, Sunil Narine, Shardul Thakur, Umesh Yadav, Lockie Ferguson, Varun Chakaravarthy
Mumbai Indians Playing XI: Ishan Kishan(w), Cameron Green, Tilak Varma, Suryakumar Yadav(c), Tim David, Nehal Wadhera, Arjun Tendulkar, Hrithik Shokeen, Piyush Chawla, Duan Jansen, Riley Meredith
It is the first time that Arjun, son of the legendary Sachin Tendulkar, will be making an appearance in the cash-rich T20 league.
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