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Days after criticising the IPL’s ‘impact player’ rule, Indian cricket team captain Rohit Sharma found himself on the bench in the match against KKR as an impact substitute in an IPL 2024 game. “I am not a big fan of Impact sub rule. It is going to hold all rounders back, eventually cricket is played by 11 players not 12 players. You are taking out so much from game to make it entertaining for people around. If you look just from the cricketing aspect of it I feel guys like Shivam Dube and Washington Sundar aren’t getting to bowl, which for us is not a good thing,” Rohit had said on ‘Club Prairie Fire’ podcast.

“I don’t know what you can do about it. There are 12 players for you, it is entertaining, you can bring on the impact player after watching how the game is going, how the pitch is behaving. If you bat well and you don’t lose wickets, you can add another bowler, it gives you an option of six or seven bowlers. You don’t require that extra batter because a lot of teams are batting well up front and you hardly see a No 7 or No 8 coming to bat,” he had explained.

But he was not the starting XI for MI vs KKR.

Mumbai Indians skipper Hardik Pandya elected to bowl against Kolkata Knight Riders in Match 51 of IPL 2024 at the Wankhede Stadium on Friday. Hardik said they have made one change in the playing XI with Naman Dhir coming in for Mohammad Nabi.

“It looks quite tough for us but at the same time, we want to play good cricket. Good to be back home. Looks like a good track and it’s a fresh wicket. We have not played on this surface. One change: Naman Dhir comes in place of Mohammad Nabi,” said Hardik Pandya at the toss.

Kolkata Knight Riders captain Shreyas Iyer said they are going in with an unchanged side.

“It’s all about doing the small things right. The message is crystal clear: each individual knows his role and responsibility. Batting first, we’re going with the same team,” said Shreyas.

Mumbai are going into this game after three successive defeats while KKR have two wins and one loss in their last three matches. However, Mumbai have dominated the head-to-head series having won 23 out of 32 matches while KKR have won nine.

Playing XIs: Mumbai Indians: Ishan Kishan (wk), Naman Dhir, Suryakumar Yadav, Tilak Varma, Hardik Pandya (c), Nehal Wadhera, Tim David, Gerald Coetzee, Piyush Chawla, Jasprit Bumrah, Rohit Sharma

Substitutes: Rohit Sharma, Shams Mulani, Shivalik Sharma, Dewald Brevis, Romario Shepherd.

Kolkata Knight Riders: Phil Salt (wk), Sunil Narine, Angkrish Raghuvanshi, Shreyas Iyer (c), Venkatesh Iyer, Rinku Singh, Andre Russell, Ramandeep Singh, Mitchell Starc, Vaibhav Arora, Varun Chakaravarthy

Substitutes: Chetan Sakariya, Anukul Roy, Sherfane Rutherford, KS Bharat, Manish Pandey

With IANS inputs