Mumbai Indians

On Saturday, Kartikeya showed why Mumbai fast-tracked him from a net bowler to a replacement player and then gave him an IPL debut against Rajasthan Royals at DY Patil Stadium.

Chasing a target of 159 for victory, the fortune favoured Mumbai, who were seeking their first points in the competition as there was plenty of dew on the ground in the second innings at the Dr DY Patil Stadium on Saturday.

It was Mumbai's first win in their ninth game of the ongoing IPL 2022 season. On the other hand, Rajasthan are at the second spot with six wins in nine matches. Earlier, Mumbai Indians restricted Rajasthan Royals to 158/6 in 20 overs despite a fine fifty from Jos Buttler (67 off 52) after winning the toss and opting to bowl first.

Apart from Buttler, Ravichandran Ashwin (21 off 9) played a useful cameo towards the end of the innings. The likes of Devdutt Padikkal (15), Sanju Samson (16) and Daryl Mitchell (17) got good starts but failed to convert them to big innings. On the other hand, Riley Meredith (2/24), Hrithik Shokeen (2/47), Daniel Sams (1/32), Kumar Kartikeya (1/19) were the wicket-takers for Mumbai.

Mumbai Indians, who haven't won a single game in the ongoing season, made two changes in their playing XI as Tim David and Kumar Kartikeya come in place of Dewald Brevis and Jaydev Unadkat. "We would like to bowl first. What we have seen over the course of the tournament, it suits us. We like to chase. We have a couple of changes. Tim David and Kumar Kartikeya come in for Brevis and Unadkat," said Rohit at the toss.

Kumar Kartikeya, who represents Madhya Pradesh in domestic cricket, debuted in 2018 and has so far played nine First-class matches, 19 List A games and eight T20s, picking 35, 18 and nine wickets respectively. He had been with the Mumbai Indians squad in IPL 2022 as part of the support team and has now signed on to join the main squad as Khan sustained an injury and was ruled out for the rest of the tournament.

According to Forbes, the Mumbai-based franchise has a value of $1.3 billion closely followed by Chennai Super Kings, which are valued at $1.15 billion. Chennai Super Kings too have not performed well in this season so far, winning only two out of eight matches.

Lucknow Super Giants (LSG) on Sunday defeated Mumbai Indians by 36 runs. We never saw 5 times champion Mumbai Indians struggle like that. They lost 8 out of 8 matches. For LGS, KL Rahul made his second hundred of the season and it was against the same team.

However, the 'review', coming after eight losses in eight games, might not be enough to revive the fortunes of the five-time champions, who are now staring at an early exit from the tournament after failing to open their account on the points table.

They had reached 49 for no loss in the seventh over with skipper Rohit Sharma looking in great form. Though Ishan Kishan had struggled to 8 runs off 20 deliveries before he got out, under-edging a shot onto the boot of wicketkeeper Quinton de Kock that sat up for Jason Holder to pocket a simple catch, and Dewald Brevis too was out cheaply, Mumbai Indians were still in the hunt with Rohit and Suryakumar Yadav at the crease.