The 12th match of the IPL 2025 saw the Mumbai Indians (MI) taking on the defending champions, the Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR), on March 31, 2025. This match was played at the Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai. Hardik Pandya, MI captain, won the toss and chose to bowl first.
MI pacers, Trent Boult and Deepak Chahar, removed the KKR openers, Sunil Narine and Quinton de Kock, in the first two overs. Then young left-arm pacer Ashwani Kumar made a huge impact as he dismissed Ajinkya Rahane on his first delivery ever in IPL on his MI debut.
Hardik Pandya then removed Angkrish Raghuvanshi (26), and Deepak Chahar got the wicket of Venkatesh Iyer for 3 runs. Ashwani Kumar then starred again as he picked three more wickets, those of Rinku Singh, Manish Pandey, and Andre Russell, to become the first Indian bowler to take a 4-fer on IPL debut.
MI spinners Mitchell Santner and Vignesh Puthur ended the MI innings with 116 runs in 16.2 overs. Ashwani Kumar started on 4/24 and impressed one and all with his left-arm pace.
In response, Rohit Sharma failed once again, getting out for 13 runs, but Ryan Rickelton (62*) and Suryakumar Yadav (27* in 9 balls) took MI to the win with 8 wickets in hand and 43 balls remaining.
Ashwani Kumar was named the Player of the Match for his brilliant IPL debut in which he took 4 wickets.
The cricket fraternity was all praises for the young Punjab pacer Ashwani Kumar and also lauded MI for their first win of the IPL 2025 season.
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