Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) landed a crushing blow to Mumbai Indian's (MI) hopes of staying alive in the race for playoffs. KKR defeated MI in the 51st match of the IPL 2024 which was played in Mumbai on May 3rd.
Hardik Pandya, the MI captain won the toss and chose to bowl first. KKR tried to go with their aggressive batting plan, but it backfired for them. They were reduced to 57/5 in no time, with big guns like Phil Salt, Rinku Singh, Shreyas Iyer, and Sunil Narine all falling for single-digit scores.
Venkatesh Iyer (70) and Manish Pandey (42) added 83 runs for the sixth wicket and helped KKR post 169 in 19.5 overs. Jasprit Bumrah and Nuwan Thushara picked three wickets each.
MI was expected to overhaul the total with ease, but KKR spinners knitted a crushing web around their batters. Rohit Sharma (11), Naman Dhir (11), Tilak Varma (4), and Nehal Wadhera (6) all fell to spinners Sunil Narine and Varun Chakravarthy.
There was still hope for MI when Suryakumar Yadav was fighting back and scored a brilliant 56 in 35 balls. But then Andre Russell and Mitchell Starc hit back and despite Tim David’s 24, MI could only muster 145 runs in 18.5 overs.
Mitchell Starc was the pick of bowlers with 4/33m including 3 wickets in the 19th over. Varun, Sunil Narine, and Andre Russell picked two scalps each. KKR defeated MI by 24 runs and solidified their position at no.2 on the IPL 2024 points table.
The cricket fraternity was all praises for KKR’s performance on social media.
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