Toss is often a major talking point in IPL night matches at the Wankhede Stadium, and Mumbai Indians got that advantage on this occasion. They opted to bowl first and, as expected, planned to chase the target later in the evening. Mumbai also made two alterations to their XI: Mitchell Santner returned to the playing group, taking the spot of AM Ghazanfar, while Mayank Markande came in for Deepak Chahar.
Royal Challengers Bengaluru would also have preferred to chase after their recent experience, but their last outing ended with them unable to hold on to a score above 200. That said, they will still back their chances against a Mumbai batting unit they view as more controllable than the top-order they faced previously—one that included Vaibhav Sooryavanshi and Yashavi Jaiswal.
RCB make a pair of tweaks
Bengaluru’s line-up saw one notable change at the top level. Josh Hazlewood was left out despite a return of 44 runs from his first match of the season, and Jacob Duffy was named in his place. The second adjustment was more about what didn’t make the substitutes list: Abhinandan Singh was not included, which opened the door for either Mangesh Yadav or Rasikh Dar to be considered later if Bengaluru needed to reshape their defence during the course of the night.
Royal Challengers Bengaluru XI
- Phil Salt
- Virat Kohli
- Devdutt Padikkal
- Rajat Patidar (capt.)
- Tim David
- Jitesh Sharma (wk)
- Romario Shepherd
- Krunal Pandya
- Bhuvneshwar Kumar
- Jacob Duffy
- Suyash Sharma
Impact bench
- Jacob Bethell
- Venkatesh Iyer
- Rasikh Dar
- Swapnil Singh
- Mangesh Yadav
Mumbai Indians XI
- Ryan Rickelton (wk)
- Rohit Sharma
- Suryakumar Yadav
- Tilak Varma
- Hardik Pandya (capt.)
- Naman Dhir
- Mitchell Santner
- Shardul Thakur
- Trent Boult
- Jasprit Bumrah
- Mayank Markande
Impact bench
- Sherfane Rutherford
- Ashwani Kumar
- Corbin Bosch
- Raghu Sharma
- Raghu Sharma
- Raj Bawa
