On April 12 (Sunday night) at Wankhede, Phil Salt, Virat Kohli and Rajat Patidar became only the second set of top-three batters in IPL history to all score fifties in the same innings against Mumbai Indians — and they did it exactly two years apart. Travis Head, Abhishek Sharma and Heinrich Klaasen did it first at Hyderabad in 2024. Mumbai Indians, somehow, are the only team to have conceded this feat in 18 years of IPL cricket.
The 2026 Assault: Wankhede Burns
Salt set the tone immediately — 78 off just 36 balls, six fours and six sixes, a strike rate of 216. He and Kohli put on 120 for the first wicket, the platform from which everything else was built. Kohli’s 50 off 38 was measured by his standards but crucial in keeping the momentum alive. Then came Patidar — and if Salt was explosive and Kohli was anchoring, Patidar was something else entirely. Fifty-three runs off just 20 balls at a strike rate of 265, four fours and five sixes, ripping through MI’s bowling in the middle overs when the game should have been up for grabs. By the time the three of them were done, RCB had 194 on the board inside 16 overs. Tim David’s unbeaten 34 off 16 finished the job — 240/4, a total that was always going to be too many.
MI’s response was brave in patches — Sherfane Rutherford’s unbeaten 71 off 31 was sensational, one of the knocks of the tournament — but they were chasing a mountain from the start. Rohit Sharma retired hurt for 19, Suryakumar Yadav managed 33 before Krunal Pandya’s slower ball trapped him, and the asking rate was always climbing faster than MI’s batters could manage. They finished 222/5 — 18 runs short, well beaten.
The 2024 Blueprint: How SRH Did It First
Two years earlier at Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium, it was Head who threw the first punch — 62 off just 24 balls. Then Abhishek Sharma arrived and somehow went even harder — 63 off 23, three fours and seven sixes, a strike rate of 273. Klaasen finished it off with an unbeaten 80 off 34. SRH posted 277 — the highest total in IPL history at the time. MI chased valiantly, reaching 246/5, but fell 31 runs short in what remains one of the most extraordinary matches the tournament has ever seen.
The MI Connection
The numbers make uncomfortable reading for Mumbai Indians. In 18 years of IPL cricket, across nearly 1,000 innings, only two teams have ever sent all three of their top-order batters back to the pavilion with fifties against MI. Both times MI lost. Both times the bowlers tasked with stopping the carnage — Bumrah included — had no answers.
For RCB, this was more than a win. Salt, Kohli and Patidar did not just dismantle Mumbai’s bowling attack on Sunday night. They joined an extremely exclusive club — and did it at Wankhede, in Mumbai, in front of 33,000 people who had no choice but to watch.
Mumbai Indians have now been on the wrong end of the rarest batting feat in IPL history — twice, two years apart. Whether they find an answer to it is one of the tournament’s more intriguing subplots from here.