Shreyas Iyer-led Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) were seen in action against Hardik Pandya-led Mumbai Indians (MI) in the 51st match of the Indian Premier League 2024 (IPL 2024) on Friday, May 3 at the Wankhede Stadium from Bombay.
Kolkata Knight Riders came into the match against Mumbai Indians with a terrible head-to-head record, as in the previous 32 matches played between the teams, it was the Mumbai-based franchise that emerged victorious in most of the outings.
The record of direct confrontations between the teams in the matches played in the Indian Premier League (IPL) was in favor of the Mumbai Indians with 23-9. The record looked even more dominant at the Wankhede Stadium as Mumbai Indians had won 9 matches and Kolkata Knight Riders had just claimed a victory. In all these years in the IPL, KKR beat MI at the Wankhede Stadium only in 2012, and in that match, Sunil Narine won the Man of the Match award for his impressive bowling figures of 4 for 15.
I’m just having a conversation with Starcy. I told him how important this match is for us – Shreyas Iyer
Coming back to the IPL 2024 match between the teams, KKR was invited to bat first and they did a poor job. KKR lost 5 wickets for 57 runs and after that, Venkatesh Iyer helped the team come back with a knock of 70 runs. Manish Pandey also contributed 42 runs and KKR posted 169 runs on the board.
Defending the target, KKR bowlers showed their class and bagged MI for 145. Mitchell Starc picked up 4 wickets while Varun Chakravarthy, Sunil Narine and Andre Russell bagged two wickets each. Now, after finishing the match between the teams, the record of head-to-head matches is MI 23 – KKR 10.
At the post-match presentation ceremony, KKR captain Shreyas Iyer highlighted the importance of the victory over MI and said:
“I was just having a conversation with Starcy. I told him how important this game was to us. If we lost this, we would have had to win two out of four. I’ll take that any day. Beautiful win for us. I hope I was able to appreciate it.” this. But we also have a game day after.”
Shreyas Iyer, unlike many others, finds the impact player rule useful and stated that the rule helped them include Manish Pandey in the XI, who helped the team achieve a good score. Iyer said:
“Certainly, with this impact player rule, it has helped us in this game. Manish has been looking for an opportunity since Day 1. Today he got it. We reached a commendable total.”
Shreyas Iyer also praised spinners Varun Chakravarthy and Sunil Narine as well as batsman Venkatesh Iyer. Shreyas Iyer said:
“All I had to say to the boys is that we can defend it with our bowling line-up. To be honest, they were unreal (on the two spinners). Absolutely spot on in terms of line execution and lengths. “It’s been eagerly waiting to go . and express himself in previous games (about Venkatesh Iyer) too.”