KKR vs LSG: Kolkata Knight Riders registered an easy eight-wicket win to celebrate their maiden victory over Lucknow Super Giants in the 28th match of the IPL 2024. Record signing Mitchell Starc finally displayed his best outings with three wickets and Phil Salt smashed a big fifty to help Kolkata record their fourth win of the season.
Starc picked three big wickets to restrict Lucknow Super Giants to 161/7 total while bowling first and then Salt recorded his second fifty of the season by smashing a match-winning 89* off 47 balls to lead KKR to their first-ever win over KKR in IPL history.
Shreyas Iyer won the toss and elected to bowl first with Rinku Singh dropping to the impact substitutes list. Lucknow handed the IPL debut to Caribbean young pacer Shamar Joseph while Deepak Hooda and Mohsin Khan also returned to their playing eleven.
Lucknow struggled for a strong start against Quinton de Kock was dismissed early by Vaibhav Arora in the second over. KL Rahul kept the scoreboard moving from one end but Lucknow struggled to find meaningful partnerships throughout their innings.
Last game's hero Ayush Badoni was promoted to the no.4 role but failed to find big shots. Andre Russell dismissed KL Rahul in the 11th over who scored 39 off 27 balls but Lucknow managed to go past 150 with in-form Nicholas Pooran playing another good knock.
Pooran top-scored with 45 off 32 balls but was not able to finish strong. Starc bowled a brilliant last over where he dismissed Pooran and Arshad Khan while conceding just six runs. Starc picked three wickets for 28 while Sunil Narine bagged one for 17.
Chasing 162, the fit-again pacer Mohsin Khan gave Lucknow an early lead in the game with big wickets of Sunil Narine and Angkrish Raghuvanshi. But Kolkata staged a sensational comeback with Phil Salt and Shreyas Iyer adding unbeaten 120 runs for the third wicket.
Salt ended his poor run of form by smashing an unbeaten 89 off just 47 balls with the help of 14 fours and three sixes while Iyer scored 38* off 38 balls as Kolkata Knight Riders chased down the target with 26 balls remaining.
Kolkata Knight Riders Playing XI: Philip Salt (wk), Sunil Narine, Venkatesh Iyer, Shreyas Iyer (c), Angkrish Raghuvanshi, Andre Russell, Ramandeep Singh, Mitchell Starc, Harshit Rana, Vaibhav Arora, Varun Chakaravarthy (substituted by Rinku Singh).
Lucknow Super Giants Playing XI: Quinton de Kock (Substituted by Arshad Khan), KL Rahul (c & wk), Deepak Hooda, Ayush Badoni, Marcus Stoinis, Nicholas Pooran, Krunal Pandya, Ravi Bishnoi, Mohsin Khan, Shamar Joseph, Yash Thakur.
