Buckle up, it's time for the IPL 2021 to begin! To get us started, we have Rohit Sharma's Mumbai Indians, the defending champions, taking on Virat Kohli's Royal Challengers Bangalore. Tonight we'll see Hardik Pandya, Kieron Pollard and Jasprit Bumrah facing off against AB de Villiers, Glenn Maxwell and Yuzvendra Chahal. If this blog doesn't load for you, click here.

You can also follow our ball-by-ball commentary here.

Click here for the full live scorecard.

6.15pm

It is not all normal at Cricinfo. There's a Covid baby here. Please welcome the newest member of the family, Cricinfo Hindi. This is from a welcome note from our editor Sambit Bal. And here is the first live Hindi scorecard on Cricinfo

Technology makes it possible today to get descriptions from raw data or to create instant translation. But that would never have felt right. Communication is a deeply personal experience: it requires individuality, personality, quirks and human imperfection. Ball-by-ball commentary is the heartbeat of our site, it needs flesh and blood. Over the years, you have related to our commentators, bantered with them, sent them your affection and cursed them too. It's a ride, and it's very human.

So we now have a team that will bring Hindi commentary to you, with all the flavours that the language merits and you deserve. We have spent the last few weeks discussing tone and temper and words and idioms, and we have been energised by the new flush of enthusiasm in our commentary team. But now we will let their natural impulse and instinct take over. Engage with them, let them know what you like and what you don't and we will learn together. And, while at it, you can follow ESPNcricinfo Hindi on Facebook and on Twitter.

6pm

It's been a hard hard year/ Pushing shit uphill/ But shit happens all the time/ And I guess it always will

Now the days are getting long/ Summer's on its way/ I can't wait for Christmas/ 'Cause the day after Christmas is Boxing Day

You'll know where to find me/ Ten rows back at the MCG/ Right behind the bowler's arm/ Right behind the bowler's arm

That is the legendary Paul Kelly's legendary welcome to the grand occasion of Boxing Day Test in Australia. We are living a dystopian version of this song in India and in the rest of the world. It's been a - pardon my French - shitty year-and-a-half, and I really don't know if cricket or any sport can provide a distraction from what is going on. All I know is, any activity going on with any semblance of normalcy is a message that we need to get up and keep living and working no matter what. So here is to a somewhat normal IPL 2021