Five IPL titles. Zero opening-match wins in thirteen years. Until Saturday night.
Mumbai Indians chased down 221 against Kolkata Knight Riders at Wankhede Stadium — winning by six wickets with five balls to spare. RCB had set the bar the day before. It’s their first opener win since 2012, when they beat CSK in a tournament they didn’t even win. The franchise that defined IPL dominance couldn’t buy a good start for over a decade.
That paradox made the jinx genuinely strange. MI won titles in 2013, 2015, 2017, 2019, and 2020 — and lost the opening match every single time. Some fans wore it as superstition: lose the opener, win the trophy. Others just wanted the embarrassment to end.
How They Killed It
KKR posted 220/4 — Ajinkya Rahane smashing 67 off 40, Angkrish Raghuvanshi adding 51 off 29. A strong total against quality batting, not a gift.
What happened next was the part nobody expected. Rohit Sharma and Ryan Rickelton put on 148 runs in 72 balls — the highest opening partnership in Wankhede Stadium history. Rohit hit 78 off 38 with six sixes and six fours. Rickelton, the South African recruit playing his first IPL match for MI, went bigger: 81 off 43 with eight sixes.
MI had never successfully chased 220 or more. They’d failed seven times trying. Their previous best was 219 against CSK in 2021. This wasn’t a record broken by a run. It was broken by intent — 224/4 in 19.1 overs, no panic, no middle-order collapse.
What It Actually Signals
Here’s the question worth watching: was this the night MI stopped being slow starters, or was it one ridiculous batting display that means nothing by April?
The jinx was never about talent. It was about how MI entered seasons — cautious, building, peaking late. Rickelton’s eight sixes in a debut chase of 221 is the opposite of cautious. Rohit’s 78 off 38 is the opposite of building.
If the next few IPL games show the same aggression, MI isn’t just breaking a jinx. They’re breaking a pattern. And for the teams that relied on MI stumbling early — that’s the part that should worry them most.