Toss: Mumbai Indians chose to bat v Rising Pune Supergiants
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Mumbai Indians handed Jos Buttler his IPL debut © Getty Images
Rohit Sharma, the Mumbai Indians captain, sprung a surprise of sorts at the first toss of the IPL season, choosing to bat first at the Wankhede Stadium, where the chasing team won three out of four matches during the recently concluded World T20. MS Dhoni, the captain of the newly launched Rising Pune Supergiants franchise, said he would have bowled first had he won the toss, and said it would be “slightly difficult to defend” on this ground.
Supergiants handed an IPL debut to the legspinner M Ashwin, whom they signed for Rs. 4.5 crore at the player auction in February. Ashwin and his offspinning namesake R Ashwin made up the side’s spin attack, while Ishant Sharma and RP Singh taking on the frontline seamers’ roles, with allrounders Mitchell Marsh and Rajat Bhatia for support.
Marsh, Faf du Plessis, Steven Smith and Kevin Pietersen were the overseas players in the Supergiants line-up.
There weren’t too many surprises in the Mumbai eleven, with new signing Jos Buttler, who cost them Rs 3.8 crore at the auction, expectedly making his IPL debut. Shreyas Gopal came into the side to provide spin support to Harbhajan Singh. The medium-pacer Vinay Kumar, meanwhile, won his 100th IPL cap.
Mumbai Indians: 1 Lendl Simmons, 2 Jos Buttler (wk), 3 Rohit Sharma, 4 Ambati Rayudu, 5 Kieron Pollard, 6 Hardik Pandya, 7 Shreyas Gopal, 8 Harbhajan Singh, 9 Mitchell McClenaghan, 10 Vinay Kumar, 11 Jasprit Bumrah
Rising Pune Supergiants: 1 Ajinkya Rahane, 2 Faf du Plessis, 3 Steven Smith, 4 Kevin Pietersen, 5 Mitchell Marsh, 6 MS Dhoni (capt & wk), 7 Rajat Bhatia, 8 R Ashwin, 9 M Ashwin, 10 Ishant Sharma, 11 RP Singh
Karthik Krishnaswamy is a senior sub-editor at ESPNcricinfo
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Source: ESPN Crickinfo