Venkatesh Iyer’s brilliant fighting half-century topped a similar effort by Suryakumar Yadav as Mitchell Star’s four-fer helped Kolkata Knight Riders beat Mumbai Indians by 24 runs in a low-scoring Match 51 of Indian Premier League (IPL) 2024, securing their first win at the Wankhede after 2012 and second over at the iconic venue.
In a match dominated by the bowlers, Venkatesh Iyer rescued KKR from a precarious 57/5 by scoring a valiant 52-ball 70 to help them reach a lowly 169. KKR’s spin twins, Sunil Narine and Varun Chakravarthy, then claimed identical hauls of 4-22 in their four overs each to reduce Mumbai Indians to 61/4.
Mumbai were soon down to 71/6 before Suryakumar Yadav launched a valiant rescue attempt, hauling them to 120 in the company of Tim David before Andre Russell (2-30) and Mitchell Starc shared five wickets between them to end Mumbai Indians’ fightback.
Starc claimed three wickets in the 19th over, two of them off successive deliveries, as he finished with 4-33. Mumbai Indians were bowled out for 145, sealing a morale-boosting victory for KKR against a team that had won 23 out of 32 matches before this encounter.
Chasing 170 on a two-paced wicket, Mumbai Indians got off to a poor start with Ishan Kishan (13), Naman Dhir (11) and Rohit Sharma (13), coming in as Impact Substitutes, getting out within the Power-play as they slumped to 46/3.
Mumbai found the going tough despite the dew on a two-paced wicket as Kishan was foxed by extra pace and saw his leg-stump cartwheeling, Dhir was undone by his urge after Varun Chakravarthy as the ball turned and left him unbalanced, disturbing the furniture while Rohit Sharma mistimed a sweep off Sunil Narine and ballooned an easy catch to midwicket.
Tilak Varma, who has saved MI on several occasions, failed to enact the rescue act on Friday as he top-edged a simple catch to Sunil Narine off Chakravarth
