Knight Riders Tame Struggling Mumbai Indians

The 51st match of the Tata IPL 2024 saw the Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) continue their dominant run with a convincing 24-run victory over the Mumbai Indians (MI) at the iconic Wankhede Stadium.

Mumbai Indians captain Hardik Pandya, under immense pressure due to his team’s string of losses, opted to field first after winning the toss. This seemed justified at first as the MI captain removed the dangerous Sunil narine for cheap.

Woes continued for KKR as Nuwan Thushara dismissed Phil Salt in the first over of the match and then got the wickets of Angkrish Raghuvanshi and Shreyas Iyer in the third. Jasprit Bumrah, meanwhile, bowled the second over and gave just two runs away.

A good and fiery innings of venkatesh iyer 70(52) and manish pandey justifying the term impact player with his impactful 42(31) helped KKR set a respectable total of 169 in 20 overs.

The 2nd innings

In the 2^nd innings Knight Riders spinners Sunil Narine and Varun Chakravarthy strangled the Mumbai Indians batters in the first 10 overs as the hosts chase a target of 170. MI were reduced to 61/4 in the ninth over with Narine sending back Rohit Sharma and Varun Chakravarthy getting Naman Dhir and Tilak Varma. Mitchell Starc dismissed Ishan Kishan in the second over. Starc went on to finish the match in spectacular fashion, taking three wickets in the second last over and thus helping KKR win by 24 runs. The Australian pacer finished with figures of 4/33 and KKR recorded their first victory over MI at the Wankhede Stadium.

The Victory

Chakravarthy, along with his spin partner Sunil Narine, proved to be KKR’s trump cards. They exploited the sluggish Wankhede pitch, turning the ball prodigiously and bamboozling the MI batsmen.
The absence of a consistent big scorer continues to plague MI. Their over-reliance on Rohit Sharma and Suryakumar Yadav has been exposed throughout the tournament

This victory will boost KKR’s confidence as they look to solidify their place in the top four. MI, on the other hand, face an uphill battle to qualify for the playoffs. They need a dramatic turnaround in form and some tactical tweaks to revive their IPL 2024 campaign.

While the questions are still being raised by the ICT fans about the selection of the 2024 T20 WC squad and the form of the players who are selected in the squad a lot could happen before the 25^th of may that is the end date for making any changes to the squad.

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