All said and done, it was KKR captain Shreyas Iyer’s water-bottle trick that stole the show.
Mumbai: It was a night to remember for the Knight Riders to conquered fortress Wankhede on Friday in an IPL match for the first time since 2012. KKR beat Mumbai Indians by 24 runs to consolidate their second spot in the points table. While it was a night to remember for KKR, it was a night to forget for the MI side as they were knocked out of IPL 2024 following the loss.
But all said and done, it was KKR captain Shreyas Iyer’s water-bottle trick that stole the show. It cannot be confirmed it was a fluke or he practiced it – but his flip of the water-bottle and then then bring it back to the original position was eerie to say the least. What made it even more special was the fact that Iyer did it without even looking at it.
Here is the clip that is now going viral:
— media (@mediaXvibe) May 4, 2024
“Just having a conversation with Starcy. Told him how important this game for us. If we lost this, would’ve had to win two out of four. Would take this anyday. Beautiful victory for us. Hope we could’ve cherished this one. But we have a match day after as well,” Iyer said at the post-match presentation after the win.
Earlier, Venkatesh Iyer’s brilliant fighting half-century topped a similar effort by Suryakumar Yadav as Mitchell Star’s four-fer helped KKR win.
In a match dominated by the bowlers, Venkatesh 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.