We had to wait a long 13 years, says Pandya after winning the first IPL match

Rohit Rickleton played a tremendous innings

Mumbai Mumbai Indians captain Hardik Pandya said after the victory over Kolkata Knight Riders in the IPL match that he had to wait a long time to win the first match of the IPL.

Mumbai Indians have always been a slow starting team in the IPL. The team last won its first match in the IPL in April 2012 in which it defeated Chennai Super Kings by eight wickets. The team won the title five times between 2013 and 2020 but the losing streak continued in the first match.

With a partnership of 148 runs for the first wicket with half-centuries from Rohit Sharma (78 runs) and Ryan Rickleton (81 runs), Mumbai Indians defeated KKR by six wickets and ended their 13-year losing streak in the IPL in the first match of the tournament.

Hardik Pandya said that whenever we came on the field, we always thought of starting the IPL on a strong note.

The whole team is very happy that we were able to do this. After being invited to bat, KKR scored 220 runs for four wickets in 20 overs with half-centuries from captain Ajinkya Rahane (67) and Angkrish Raghuvanshi (51).

Regarding chasing this big score, he said that considering the current mood and pitch in cricket, it is credit to our bowlers that they did not allow KKR to reach the score of 240 or 250 runs. These targets become difficult but a score of 220 is achievable. With the help of Rohit (43 balls, four fours and eight sixes) and Rickleton (38 balls, six fours, six sixes), Mumbai Indians won by scoring 224 runs for four wickets in 19.1 overs.

Rohit Rickleton gave a tremendous performance
Pandya said that Rohit and Rickleton performed tremendously. On choosing between Rickleton and Quinton de Kock, he said that Ryan had performed very well for us last year. And Quinny is a wonderful person. He understood that we were supporting one player and wanted to maintain continuity in the team. This method worked. Whenever I see Rohit playing some shots, everyone is surprised.

His batting is not excellent but tremendous.

end-of