Follow UsKrunal Pandya giveth Mumbai Indians hope. Krunal Pandya taketh hope away from MI.
With Mumbai needing 84 off 6 overs to complete a chase which, at one point, looked beyond impossible, RCB captain Rajat Patidar threw the ball to Krunal to tackle the rampant brother of his, Hardik Pandya.
Before tonight, IPL 2025 had not witnessed the absolute best of Hardik with the bat in hand, but on the night, Wankhede witnessed a performance that looked like it could be a once-in-a-lifetime showing. Hardik hammered 20 off his first 5 balls, and it genuinely looked like he was seeing the ball like a Football. He was scary good; every ball looked like it could go for six.
And in walked Krunal, whose first four balls against his brother read 6, 6, wd, wd.
To Krunal’s relief, Hardik took a single off the fifth ball, but by the end of the over, the equation had come down to 65 off 30 balls. With six wickets in hand, Mumbai were borderline favourites at this point, and the worst was about to come for RCB: one more over of Krunal.
Five overs remained in the contest but only four of pace, which meant that RCB had no option but to bowl Krunal in the final over of the game.
“We wanted to take the game as deep as possible, so we were clear in our mind that we would bowl KP [Krunal Pandya] only in the final over,” skipper Rajat Patidar said at the post-match presentation.
Josh Hazlewood bowling an outstanding penultimate over - 9 runs - meant that Krunal had a nice cushion when he walked in to bowl, but defending 19 runs was still going to be an incredibly tough task against Mitchell Santner (leftie), Naman Dhir (striking the ball sweetly) and Deepak Chahar (capable hitter). This was, by a distance, the best batting surface seen in the competition across the past two weeks, and Krunal was going to be at the batter’s mercy, even against numbers 7, 8, and 9.
What would unfold across the next six balls would prove to be one of the finest moments of the elder Pandya’s career, for he would end up redeeming himself in the most cinematic way imaginable, bowling the clutchest over of this entire IPL, let alone this particular game.
On the very first ball of the final over, Krunal got rid of one of the two danger men, Santner.
Anything but a wide yorker looked like it would disappear over the fence but the left-arm spinner, somehow, nailed precisely what he wanted to do, bowling a mighty full delivery wide of the left-hander. Santner, having already made up his mind to loft it straight, tried to pump it straight into the side screen, but the ball was *just* wide enough to make sure the contact wasn’t clean. It was still pretty clean, and it required a nerveless catch from the tall Tim David at long-off to complete the dismissal.
In walked Deepak Chahar up next, and he was greeted with a trademark bouncer from the left-armer. It was a smart ploy that resulted in a wicket, but this was a dismissal that was all about the fielding. In one of the craziest displays of athleticism and awareness all season, Phil Salt, who missed out with the bat, ran to his left, took an extremely arduous catch at full stretch, and let go of the ball before he crossed the boundary line. Next thing you know, Tim David is there, AGAIN, to complete the catch.
19 off 6 became 19 off 4, and, just like that, Krunal was on a hat-trick.
The hat-trick did not happen, and a wide and a single later, the equation was down to 17 off 3. Except MI were still in it because Naman Dhir was back on strike.
Now, 17 off 3 is the kind of equation that heavily favours the bowling team, but this is Mumbai, this is Wankhede. This is a ground that’s seen Aditya Tare hit *that* six off James Faulkner and Dwayne Smith do the impossible against Ben Hilfenhaus. Dhir was hitting the ball clean enough for there to be hope.
Another attempted wide yorker (at pace) ensued, but, on this occasion, the batter managed to slice it over short third-man for a boundary. 13 off 2. Two sixes for a super over.
The pressure was still very much on Dhir to deliver, but the stakes were way higher for Krunal. It’s okay for a batter to not chase 13 off 2, but ooof, bottle a 13 off 2 situation as a bowler and you’ll be haunted by it for life.
In walked Krunal, who picked the worst possible time to bowl his worst delivery of the over: a full toss down leg-side.
Dhir crouched, got down on his knees, and attempted to use the pace of the ball to send it over the fence. As the ball left his bat, for a brief moment, it looked like he had pulled it off. The ball was flying, and it looked like it was destined to go for a six over fine-leg, bringing the equation down to 7 off 1 ball.
As it turned out, Dhir’s connection was similar to Misbah’s against Joginder Sharma in the 2007 T20 World Cup Final: deceptive to the core for the television viewers. In walked Yash Dayal to take the catch seemingly out of nowhere, and out went Dhir, Mumbai, and their hopes.
And just like that, Krunal had become the hero for RCB, completing the unlikeliest of redemptions by bowling an ice-cold final over.
If this ain’t cinema, what is?