Mumbai Indians have done it. On Sunday evening at the Wankhede Stadium ©BCCI
It finally happened. After 13 long, painful, embarrassing years, Mumbai Indians have done it. On Sunday evening at the Wankhede Stadium, in front of a roaring home crowd, Hardik Pandya’s side smashed Kolkata Knight Riders by 6 wickets to win their IPL season opener for the first time since 2012. MI breaks the 13-year jinx in the most emphatic way possible — chasing down a mammoth 221 in just 19.1 overs.
Take a moment to absorb that. Thirteen years. Five IPL titles. Multiple title-winning seasons — and in every single one, they had lost their opening match. The five-time champions had lost their season opener 13 years running — every single one, from 2013 to 2025. The last time they won their first game of the year, they hadn’t won a single title yet. That was 2012.
Tonight was different. Tonight, Rohit Sharma turned back the clock. Tonight, Ryan Rickelton announced himself to the IPL world. Tonight, Wankhede went absolutely ballistic. Mumbai Indians are off the mark for IPL 2026 — and they didn’t just win. They demolished.
The scoreboard above tells you the result. But the dots below it tell you the story. Thirteen red circles, one green. That single green dot in 2026 is worth more to this franchise right now than almost any other result.
The Curse That Haunted a Dynasty
The five-time champions had not won the opening match of an IPL season for an unbelievable 13 seasons, with their last opening fixture victory coming in 2012 when they did not have a single IPL title in their kitty.
Think about what happened in those 13 years. MI won five IPL trophies — in 2013, 2015, 2017, 2019, and 2020. They won the finals. They produced champions. They became the most successful franchise in the history of the IPL. And yet, every single season began the same way: a loss on opening night.
The run of losses spans every opponent and every margin imaginable — a 2-run heartbreaker against Royal Challengers Bangalore in 2013, a 9-wicket thrashing by Rising Pune Supergiant in 2016, a 1-wicket gut-punch against Chennai Super Kings in 2018. Last year, MI fell again — to CSK — to keep the streak intact.
It was, by any measure, one of the most curious statistical oddities in the history of the IPL. The best team in the tournament, incapable of winning Match 1.
Tonight, finally, that era is over.
How the Match Unfolded
MI won the toss and — smartly — chose to bowl first. KKR came out swinging. Ajinkya Rahane, who at the toss said he had “never seen so much of grass at Wankhede”, scored a blazing 67 off 40 balls, starting his season in style. He got support from another Mumbai lad Angkrish Raghuvanshi, who scored 51 off 29 as KKR powered to 220 for 4 in their opening game. Finn Allen smashed 37 off 17 balls in an explosive start at the top.
For MI’s bowlers, it was a tough evening. But Shardul Thakur — on his MI debut — was excellent, picking up 3 wickets. Jasprit Bumrah did Bumrah things: quiet, controlled, devastating when needed, conceding just 35 runs in 4 overs.
Then came the chase. And what a chase it was.
Rohit and Rickelton Tear KKR Apart
The chase began quietly — Phil Salt fell early — and then the stadium held its breath for a moment. Then Rohit Sharma walked to the crease. What followed was vintage, imperious, jaw-dropping Rohit.
Rohit Sharma wound back the clock, smashing 78 off 38 balls, while Ryan Rickelton thumped 81 off 43, with the duo adding 148 runs for the opening wicket off 72 balls.
That opening partnership. What a number. 148 runs in 72 balls. Rohit with 6 fours and 6 sixes. Rickelton with 4 fours and 8 sixes. These are the kinds of numbers that don’t belong in a normal IPL match. These are highlights reel numbers. The 148-run stand between Rohit Sharma and Ryan Rickelton is the highest ever at the Wankhede Stadium for any wicket. It is also the third-highest stand for any wicket for Mumbai Indians.
With a partnership like that, the 221-run target never really looked threatening. Against a KKR unit missing several of their frontline seamers, MI barely had any hiccups chasing down the highest successful target at Wankhede in the IPL with five balls to spare.
Two Jinxes Broken in One Night
This wasn’t just any MI win. This was a night of double redemption. MI broke two jinxes as they chased down 221 in 19.1 overs — Mumbai Indians had never won their opening game of the IPL since 2012, and Mumbai Indians had never chased down a 220-plus target in their previous seven attempts.
Both records fell on the same night. At the same ground. Against a side that entered the match with their own injury concerns and uncertainties. KKR had no Harshit Rana, no Akash Deep — and it showed when MI got going. Varun Chakravarthy, so brilliant in the T20 World Cup, was unable to stem the flow. Sunil Narine — one of the greatest T20 bowlers of all time — was, as the ESPNCricinfo match blog put it, “a shadow of his former self.”
None of it mattered. This was MI’s night.
What This Means for IPL 2026
For a franchise eyeing their sixth IPL title after a five-year wait, getting off to a winning start is more than just two points on the table. It’s a statement. It’s momentum. It’s history.
The conversation around MI this year is not just about winning — it’s about rewriting history. In sports, certain patterns take on lives of their own. Mumbai Indians’ opening-match struggles had become one such narrative — part statistical anomaly, part psychological hurdle. But streaks are made to be broken.
They have been broken. The psychological weight of 13 consecutive opening-match losses has been lifted off this squad’s shoulders. Heading into their next fixture, MI will play with the freedom and confidence of champions who know that this time, something is different.
KKR, meanwhile, have work to do. That KKR were coming into this opening game severely depleted on the bowling front was known. The extent of it was visible on Sunday night with Vaibhav Arora and Blessing Muzarabani toothless, Varun Chakravarthy ineffective and Sunil Narine a shadow of his former self. The bowling depth needs to be addressed urgently before their next outing.
The Night Wankhede Will Never Forget
The last time MI had won their season opener, Kohli had only 12 international centuries, Sachin Tendulkar had yet to retire, Rohit Sharma had scored zero double centuries, and Joe Root hadn’t even made his international debut. So much has changed. So much cricket has been played. And yet that monkey on MI’s back had refused to shift.
Until tonight.
When the winning runs were hit in the 20th over, Wankhede erupted. Players hugged. The dugout erupted. A crowd of 45,000 that had been willing their team on all evening finally got the release they had been waiting for — some of them, literally, for over a decade.
Mumbai Indians have broken the 13-year jinx. And if this is how their IPL 2026 campaign begins, the rest of the tournament is going to be very, very exciting.