Hardik Pandya’s decisions ‘surprising, KKR have no right to win’: Former IPL champion breaks down MI’s disappointing performance | cricket news

After the encounter between Mumbai Indians and Kolkata Knight Riders, Australia’s World Cup-winning all-rounder Shane Watson said that the Kolkata franchise did not deserve to win the match as they lost the first five wickets very early. An 83-run partnership between Venkatesh Iyer-Manish Pandey and the magic of Mitchell Starc’s pure pace helped KKR register a 24-run win against MI at the Wankhede Stadium on Friday.

Starc made an extraordinary comeback in the tournament, returning with figures of 4-33. Knight Riders ended their 12-year wait for a win at the Wankhede Stadium with a 24-run win and moved closer to the playoff places.

The former Australian cricketer claimed that the Knight Riders had no right to win the match after losing the first five wickets so early in the match against five-time champions MI.

“KKR had no right to win that game tonight when they were down by five wickets. It just shows their fight and also some of the things that happened. Some of the decisions that were made, whether it was bowling or bowling. Be it the changes in the batting line-up or the deployment of the batting lineup, some of those decisions were very shocking, to really give KKR the upper hand in a game that was on a knife edge at certain times,” said the former IPL champion of Chennai Super Kings. Watson said on Jio Cinema.

The 42-year-old further said that this win will give a lot of confidence to the Shreyas Iyer-led team.

“See this will give KKR so much confidence to know that they don’t have to play their best and be in a situation where the game is almost over and they have got to really fight and have determination to find their way to a result. On the right side,” said the two-time IPL champion.

Talking about the match, a solid partnership of 83 runs between Venkatesh Iyer (70 runs on 52 balls) and Manish Pandey (42 runs on 31 balls), who came to bat first, took KKR to 169 runs. For MI, one of the bowlers was Jasprit Bumrah. 3 wickets for 18 runs in 3.5 overs and two wickets in one over.

In reply, MI were all out for 145 runs. Starc made a stellar comeback in the tournament with figures of 4-33 in just 3.5 spells to lead KKR to a 24-run win. Varun Chakravarthy and Sunil Narine both finished with similar figures of 2/22, which also included some big wickets in the first half of the chase, which put KKR on top in the match.

After the win, KKR are second in the IPL 2024 standings with 14 points. Meanwhile, MI are at ninth position with 6 points.

KKR will next face Lucknow Super Giants (LSG) at the Ekana Cricket Stadium in Lucknow on Sunday.