KKR vs MI IPL 2022 Highlights: Cummins's record half century helps KKR win by five wickets

Ajinkya Rahane, Venkatesh Iyer, Shreyas Iyer (captain), Sam Billings (wicketkeeper), Nitish Rana, Andre Russell, Sunil Narine, Pat Cummins, Umesh Yadav, Rasikh Salam, Varun Chakaravarthy

Lot of interesting changes today for both sides. 

KKR: Pat Cummins replaces Tim Southee, which one may argue was expected considering Southee was brought in after it was confirmed that Cummins won't be playing in the early part of the season. Rasikh replaces Shivam Mavi. 

MI: Suryakumar is finally back and he replaces Anmolpreet Singh. Brevis, who set the U19 World Cup on fire earlier this year and had all sorts of hype going for him after that tournament, replaces Tim David. So changes in the bowling lineup for MI. 

KKR win the toss and choose to bowl first. Dewald “Baby AB” Brevis to make his debut for MI and Suryakumar returns to the squad. 

Jammu and Kashmir fast bowler Rasikh Salam has been handed his debut cap by Umesh Yadav so it is confirmed that he will be in the playing XI today. What does that mean for the rest of the squad, we will find out in a couple of minutes at the toss.

Deep Dasgupta says that it is a fresh pitch that could assist pace and bounce. "There is a a lot of live grass," he says. 

Sunil Narine has dismissed Rohit Sharma seven times in the IPL, nine times overall in T20 cricket so the MI captain will have his work cut out whenever Shreyas brings on the Trinidadian. Rohit has been in good nick so far this IPL. 

KKR vs MI may statistically be a one-sided rivalry but the fact remains that Kolkata have never lost a game in Pune. They have played six games at the MCA stadium and won all of them. So if there is history against them today, there is also history for them. TOSS COMING UP IN JUST OVER HALF AN HOUR!

While Andre Russell lit up the stage in KKR's previous game, his fellow senior West Indian Kieron Pollard is yet to do so for MI. Pollard had an especially forgettable outing in the last game with the ball, conceding 46 runs and taking just one wicket. With the bat, he was left with just too much to do and couldn't prevent his team from falling to a 23-run defeat. 

Sheldon Jackson has been earning rave reviews for his extraordinary wicketkeeping skills, although that may not have come as too much of a surprise for those who have been keeping an eye on the Indian domestic circuit. Such fans would also know that Jackson has been a run-machine for a long time and KKR head coach Brendon McCullum, who knows a thing or two about big-hitting, said that Jackson's hitting ability is second only to Russell. We are guaranteed to see some quick work from Jackson in front of the stumps and the KKR fans would surely be hoping that he does the same in front of them as well. 

Russell took some time to take off against PBKS but once he did, there was no looking back. The big Jamaican smashed an unbeaten 70 off 31 balls, hitting as many as 8 sixes and just two fours. Mumbai's bowling attack is lacking confidence but one can expect Bumrah and Mills to be difficult prospects to go after. It will be interesting to see how Russell goes about his business today in the death overs. 

MI have dominated this fixture. In the 29 times that they have faced each other, MI have won a whopping 22 times and KKR only 7. One of those wins for KKR, however, came quite spectacularly in the previous game between the two sides which was the Eliminator of the season. KKR, who were floundering in the bottom half of the table before the start of the second half of the season in the UAE, beat MI by 7 wickets to continue their hot run. They eventually lost to CSK in the final and were denied a third IPL title.

It seems Pune is bucking the general trend of being advantageous to the chasing side. Dew hasn't played too much of a role and the two matches played this season thus far has ended in wins for the team batting first. Despite this, don't be surprised if the captain winning the toss elects to bowl first anyhow. 

It is April 6 and if you remember Cricket Australia's words, you would also realise that the contracted Australian players can play for their IPL squads from today. This means that Australia's Test captain Pat Cummins can play for KKR. It remains to be seen who he will replace though, KKR's bowling attack has been absolutely purring. 

A feature of MI's two losses have been their bowling simply being unable to restrict the opposition. While in the first match, it was spearhead Jasprit Bumrah and Daniel Sams being unable to restrict the DC batters, in the second Basil Thampi, who took three wickets in the first, was sent to all corners of the park by Jos Buttler. Buttler eventually went on to score a century and while MI pulled things back in the later half of the innings, they were left with too much to chase. 

Today we have two former champions who seem to be on two ends of the form spectrum. KKR come into the match having won both their previous fixtures while MI have lost both. While KKR's bowling attack, led by veterans Umesh Yadav and Tim Southee, seems to be breathing fire at the moment, MI have been undone by teams hooking and pulling and smashing their predominantly young bowlers all over the park. While all this could be put down to MI's tendency to get off to slow starts before running through the tournament like hot knife through butter, the fact remains that a defeat here could make things very tricky indeed for the five-time champions.