Mumbai Indians captain Hardik Pandya was involved in an awkward moment during the toss ceremony of the IPL 2024 match against the Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) on Friday at the Wankhede Stadium.
As is the norm, home team skipper Hardik Pandya took the coin from the match referee and threw it into the air. However, it was interesting to note that Pandya tossed the coin a bit too high and took a couple of steps back.
The match referee then lifted the coin before the cameraman could focus on it to make it visible to the audience watching the live stream.
You can watch the incident in the video below:
"It's always about playing for pride" - MI captain Hardik Pandya after winning the toss in the IPL 2024 clash vs KKR
MI skipper Hardik Pandya won the toss and opted to bowl first in the contest. He opened up that they wanted to analyze the fresh surface by watching the bat first before getting to it in the second innings.
The hosts also made one change to their playing XI as they replaced Mohammad Nabi with Naman Dhir. Interestingly, former captain Rohit Sharma's name was absent in the starting XI. However, he is likely to bat in the second innings, coming in as an impact substitute.
Speaking after the toss, Hardik Pandya said:
"We will bowl first. It's always about playing for pride. It looks quite tough for us. But looking forward to playing in front of our home crowd. It's a fresh wicket, we haven't played here before. So we thought bowling first would be good. It looks like a good track. Only one change, Naman Dhir, comes in place of Nabi."
Mumbai Indians (Playing XI): Ishan Kishan (wk), Tilak Varma, Nehal Wadhera, Suryakumar Yadav, Hardik Pandya (c), Tim David, Naman Dhir, Gerald Coetzee, Piyush Chawla, Jasprit Bumrah, and Nuwan Thushara.
MI Impact subs: Rohit Sharma, Shams Mulani, Shivalik Sharma, Dewald Brevis, and Romario Shepherd.
Kolkata Knight Riders (Playing XI): Philip Salt (wk), Sunil Narine, Angkrish Raghuvanshi, Shreyas Iyer (c), Venkatesh Iyer, Rinku Singh, Andre Russell, Ramandeep Singh, Mitchell Starc, Vaibhav Arora, and Varun Chakaravarthy.
KKR Impact subs: Anukul Roy, Manish Pandey, KS Bharat, Sherfane Rutherford, and Chetan Sakariya.
Do you think Mumbai Indians can return to winning ways with a strong performance in this match? Let us know your views in the comments section below.
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