Mumbai Indians' debutant Ashwani Kumar celebrates the with of Andre Russell with teammates during IPL 2025 match against Kolkata Knight Riders in Mumbai. (Express photo by Amit Chakravarty)Synopsis: Ashwani Kumar stars on MI debut as KKR combust with their all-in-or-bust aggressive approach
Couple of nights back, Mumbai Indians struggled to cope with a sluggish track in Ahmedabad. On Monday night, at their home den where there was more pace and bounce on offer, they wreaked havoc, restricting Kolkata Knight Riders to just 116. Once they had snaffled four wickets within the Powerplay, the writing was on the wall, and their talented youngster Ashwani Kumar didn’t allow KKR to get back in the game by grabbing a four-for. The 23-year old was, by his own admission, nervous during the day, had just one banana for lunch, but decided to have KKR batsmen for dinner.
They lost five wickets in the first seven overs as they kept going for it, though it must be said that their shot selection – or at least the execution – wasn’t quite right. Sunil Narine shuffled towards leg stump, but received a peach of an outswinger from left-armer Trent Boult. This one landed full around middle and curved away, beating the hurried jab and clattering the stumps.
The second wicket seemed like a gift as Quinton de Kock slammed a well-outside-off delivery to extra cover but Deepak Chahar had tried that same delivery the previous ball too. That had slipped away as a wide but he went for that line again, and got his man.
It was then that KKR’s approach came to the foreground as by then, Mumbai had decided the ideal way on this track was to bounce the batsmen. Boult tried it against Rahane, who is a good puller and sent it soaring over long-leg. But a cheap dismissal followed as Rahane went for a big slash to a full delivery outside off from left-handed Ashwini Kumar, and found a juggling Tilak Verma pouching it at deep backward point. It was a wicket off his first ball on IPL debut, the 15th player to do that in IPL.
MI’s Ryan Rickelton in action against KKR during IPL 2025 match. (Express photo by Amit Chakravarty)
In the 6th over, Venkatesh Iyer let go a short ball from Chahar, and practised an upper-cut. And when the opportunity came for that shot, he went for it, though not as effectively as he would have liked. The delivery was a lot closer to him and bounced sharply, and lacking room and time, Iyer could only feather it to the wicketkeeper. And when Pandya induced Angriksh Raghuvanshi, who looked the best batsman among the top order in his brief stay with clips and punches, to pull one straight to deep square-leg, KKR were wobbling at 45 for 5 in 7 overs. They were forced to choose an extra batsman in Manish Pandey as their Impact Player – and so weren’t able to use Vaibhav Arora in the chase.
The left-handed seamer has gained a reputation at Sher-e-Punjab, a T20 league in Punjab, for icy nerves in particular, for his death-overs bowling with a slew of slower ones. He didn’t have to use any of those skills on Monday. The first wicket of Rahane might not seem like a great delivery, but his cricketing intelligence showed through in the remainder of his spell.
Rinku Singh, in constant search for big hits and who had nearly holed out once at long-off, charged Ashwini who adjusted by dragging back the length. The resultant carve was held at deep point.
KKR kept trying to hit him, and kept walking back to the pavilion. Manish Pandey charged at him and flat-batted a short ball past him to the straight boundary. The three deliveries in that over had been all short, and Ashwani adjusted with one slightly fuller, on a length. He mixed it up further with a scrambled-seam release and it shaped in towards leg-stump and that movement stumped Pandey, who had a weak stab at it and inside-edged it on to his stumps.
Ashwani followed a similar set-up to take down giant hitter Andre Russell. A debutant vs the big hitter was quite a contest. Again, he bounced a couple of deliveries and Russell couldn’t get bat on ball. He then crouched, opened up his stance and waited to slug the next ball. But this one from Ashwani wasn’t short; instead a length delivery that skidded on with the angle arrived and burst past the slog to crash into the stumps. 88 for 8, and KKR’s final big hope was gone.
“I didn’t have lunch today, I only ate a banana, there was some pressure so I didn’t feel hungry. I made a bit of a plan, they (team management) told me that it’s my debut match ‘so enjoy yourself and back your skills’. The captain also played his role, Hardik bhai told me to bowl it into the wicket. Everyone back in the village will be watching me play, I got my opportunity today and I’m very happy,” Ashwani said at the innings break.
Hopefully he had a good dinner, watching opener Ryan Rickleton smash the KKR attack to smithereens, before Suryakumar Yadav applied the finishing touches with a 9-ball unbeaten 27, with some characteristic improvised shots targeting the V behind the stumps.
Brief scores: Kolkata Knight Riders 116 all out in 16.2 overs (Angkrish Raghuvanshi 26; Ashwani Kumar 4/24) lost to Mumbai Indians 121/2 in 12.5 overs (Ryan Rickelton 62 not out, Suryakumar Yadav 27 not out) by 8 wickets.
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