The State of Play
The high-flying Kolkata Knight Riders will seek to improve on their woeful record at the Wankhede Stadium when they visit the Mumbai Indians tomorrow.
KKR sit second in the IPL 2024 table having won six of their nine games but they have not won at the iconic Mumbai venue since 2012 when Sunil Narine inspired them to victory with four for 15.
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Narine is now a swashbuckling opener whose efforts at the top of the order alongside Phil Salt have done much to propel Shreyas Iyer’s men into a position where the play-offs seem a near certainty.
Salt was the hero last time out with a 33-ball 68 as KKR eased past the Delhi Capitals by seven wickets.
The England international said: “It is high-risk at times, but it is also about putting the odds in your favour and not taking the risks you don’t want to.
“That’s the sort of balance that every opening batter tries to strike. Sometimes you can miss the boat a few innings in a row, but you’ve just got to keep backing yourself and sort of taking those right options.”
He and Narine are the highest-scoring opening pair in the competition with 485 runs.
“We’ve dovetailed nicely this competition, [and] that’s because if one of us gets going, then you feed the strike to that person,” Salt said. “When I get going, he feeds me the strike, and vice-versa. It’s good that we are on the same page like that.”
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The Indians will have to keep the pair quiet if they are to resurrect what has been a largely dismal season.
Captain Hardik Pandya has failed to inspire his team and faced plenty of criticism as a result.
On their last outing, they lost by four wickets to the Lucknow Super Giants, leaving the five-time champions on the brink of elimination.
Paceman Jasprit Bumrah has been the one player to excel, with no-one exceeding his 14 wickets in IPL 2024 so far.
But repeated failures in the powerplay have stunted their progress and they come into this contest hoping to avoid a fourth straight defeat.
🔙 in Mumbai 🫶#MumbaiMeriJaan #MumbaiIndians pic.twitter.com/a1oW2bMi2g
— Mumbai Indians (@mipaltan) May 2, 2024
Expected line-ups:
Mumbai Indians: Kishan (wk), Sharma, Yadav, Varma, Pandya (c), Wadhera, David, Nabi, Coetzee, Chawla, Bumrah
Kolkata Knight Riders: Salt (wk), Narine, Rin Singh, S Iyer (c), V Iyer, Russell, Ram Singh, Starc, Arora, Chakravarthy, Rana
How to watch
Sky have the rights to show the IPL to UK viewers in 2024 and will broadcast every game live. Friday’s match will be shown on Sky Sports Cricket from 2.50pm BST.
In India, the games can be streamed on the Jio Cinema app and website. They are also available across the Star Sports Network.
When in Mumbai…do the supla! 😂 pic.twitter.com/8ZF55z5CBo
— KolkataKnightRiders (@KKRiders) May 2, 2024
Prediction
Hoodoos are there to be broken and there seems no better time for the Knight Riders to finally get a win at the Wankhede.
Rarely has there been such a gulf between the teams, not so much in ability, but in confidence.
The Indians appear bereft of self-belief with repeated batting failures symptomatic of their collective, and repeated, brain fades.
In contrast, KKR can rely on their openers to set a platform. In this crash, bang, wallop format it makes a huge difference when you are handed a strong start.
All the evidence points to an away win and we cannot disagree, Wankhede hoodoo or not.
