5 factors that shaped KKR’s first win at Wankhede since 2012

Nuwan Thushara runs through KKR’s top-order

Kolkata Knight Riders' (KKR) red-hot top order was expected to fire at Wankhede, but greenhorn Nuwan Thushara rocked them with a triple-strike in the powerplay. Crucially, he dismissed the rampant Phil Salt in the very first over.  

The Knight Riders kept losing wicket after wicket and lost half their side after just 37 balls.

The Manish Pandey masterstroke 

At 57/5, KKR chose to sub in Manish Pandey to salvage the innings. That proved to be a masterstroke as Pandey (42) stitched together an 83-run stand with Venkatesh Iyer (70) to rescue KKR’s innings and take them to 169. 

Notably, Hardik Pandya did not go for the kill at 57/5. By the time Bumrah bowled his second over, KKR had already moved to 109/5. 

KKR spinners derail Mumbai’s chase upfront 

Mumbai Indians (MI) made a brisk start to the chase (38/1 in 4 overs), at which point Shreyas Iyer unleashed his spinners. Across the next five overs, Sunil Narine and Varun Chakaravarthy broke the back of MI’s chase with a spell of 3/23. 

It was yet another failure for Rohit Sharma (11), who scripted an unwanted record against Narine. 

Sizzling Suryakumar gets MI back into the chase

At 71/6, with Pandya departing, MI looked dead and buried, but Suryakumar Yadav single-handedly kept the hosts in the chase. 

He completely changed the momentum of the game in the 14th over of the chase, bowled by Vaibhav Arora. Vaibhav overstepped in that over, and from thereon, SKY went on to take 20 off the over to bring the equation down to 60 off 6 overs, with both him and Tim David at the crease. 

Mumbai’s death by full tosses 

Mumbai’s season came crashing down in the most cruel — but comical — fashion imaginable, with them perishing to full tosses. Both Suryakumar (56) and David (24) got dismissed off smashed juicy, ‘hit-me’ full tosses, as did Piyush Chawla. In the 16-20 phase, KKR seamers bowled three full-tosses; all three resulted in wickets as MI bowed out of the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2024 after losing to KKR at Wankhede for the first time in 12 years.

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