The homecoming wasn’t as expected for Mumbai Indians as they faced yet another defeat in the 2024 IPL season. Kolkata Knight Riders won the contest by 24 runs, a victory that came after 12 years at this venue for the men in purple.
The last time KKR defeated Mumbai Indians at Wankhede was back in 2012. For a brief moment today, while SKY was batting, it looked like the statistic was going to remain. But the out-of-form Mitchell Starc decided to show his class in the penultimate over of the match. After conceding a six off the first ball, he took three wickets to wrap up the MI innings in the same over.
With just three wins in eleven games, Mumbai Indians can very well say goodbye to their playoffs ambition. Whereas Kolkata has taken a step closer to seal their playoffs spot.
Venkatesh Iyer played a crucial 70-run knock to help his team put up a total of 169 on the board in the first innings. His innings was decorated with 6 fours and 3 sixes.
Mumbai had a rocky start to the innings with the early dismissal of Ishan Kishan in the second over of the innings. Mitchell Starc, who had been in poor form throughout the IPL, got hit for two consecutive boundaries (a four and a six) before cleaning him up with a full delivery on the next ball.
Soon Naman Dhir and Rohit Sharma followed Ishan to the dugout. Varun Chakravarthy castled Naman in the fifth over of the innings. Whereas Rohit tried slogging one over mid-wicket in Sunil Narine’s first over but couldn’t time the ball well. Mumbai had lost three crucial wickets within the powerplay.
Tilak Varma and Suryakumar Yadav started building a partnership but even that couldn’t last for more than 15 runs and 17 balls. Tilak tried cutting Narine’s delivery but ended up sending the ball straight into Varun Chakravarthy’s hands at third man.
Even skipper Hardik Pandya couldn’t capitalize on a good stage set for him to show his batting prowess. Russell’s delivery found Pandya’s edge and the ball went high in the air as Manish Pandey settled under it for a comfortable catch.
KKR was in the driver’s seat but then came the Suryakumar Yadav show. SKY, who was playing cautiously till the 13th over, decided to break the shackles and put on a display of boundaries. He smashed 20 runs in Vaibhav Arora’s third over and shifted the momentum towards the home team.
Russell was brought back in to bowl the 16th over and he didn’t disappoint his captain. He took the crucial wicket of Suryakumar Yadav (56). SKY tried picking the ball up from his pads and hit it over the square leg boundary but the ball found the top edge of his bat. Wicket-keeper Phil Salt took a splendid catch running back from his position to the boundary line.
The equation boiled down to 32 runs needed in the last two overs with Tim David and Gerald Coetzee out in the middle. Tim smashed the first ball of Starc for a six but gave his wicket away on the very next ball. The Australian all-rounder tried slogging a full toss over the long off but couldn’t time it well. The next batter Piyush Chawla followed Tim on the next ball itself.
Starc wrapped the Mumbai Indians up in his over by dismissing Coetzee with a brilliant yorker, something he is known for.
Earlier, Mumbai had a great start after winning the toss and choosing to field. They were able to break KKR’s crucial opening partnership with Phil Salt’s dismissal in the second over itself. Tilak took a brilliant catch running backwards and collided with Akash Madhwal in the process.
Soon more wickets followed as Angkrish Raghuvanshi handed an easy catch to Suryakumar Yadav. The in-form Sunil Narine and skipper Shreyas Iyer were the next to follow as KKR found themselves 43/4 in just 4.2 overs.
The onus then fell on the two power hitters, Rinku Singh and Venkatesh Iyer. Rinku has been the talk of the town recently because of him missing out on India’s T20 World Cup squad. The stage was perfectly set for him to put on a show but he couldn’t capitalize on it. Rinku tried to put the ball in the gap and find a single but the ball went straight to Piyush Sharma who took a brilliant catch in his follow through.
With Rinku’s dismissal, the panic button was pressed and KKR decided not to wait and send in their impact player in the first innings itself. Manish Pandey came out to bat, replacing Raghuvanshi in the XI.
Manish and Venkatesh built a long 83-run partnership off 62 balls. All this while, KKR’s best power-hitter Andre Russell was sitting in the dugout. It was only in the 17th over that Russell got a chance to come out and bat after Manish Pandey’s dismissal.
Russell started his innings with a six but couldn’t build on to that as the duo got into a mix up and Russell got run out.
KKR somehow managed reach 170 at the end of the innings with the help of a few boundaries from Venkatesh Iyer in the last few balls.
Comments
0 comment