"Today's game between KKR and MI is what a T20 game should be" - Fans react to Shreyas Iyer and co's first win at the Wankhede since IPL 2012
Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) earned a hard-fought win at the Wankhede Stadium against the Mumbai Indians (MI) to mark their first triumph at the venue since 2012. The Shreyas Iyer-led side defended a 170-run target to take one step closer to the playoffs. Meanwhile, MI are all but eliminated after their fourth loss in a row.
After being put into bat, KKR were struggling in the powerplay, losing their in-form top order. The visitors had to use their impact sub right after the powerplay as the fifth wicket fell with just 57 runs on the board. Venkatesh Iyer and the experienced Manish Pandey repaired the innings, but Kolkata lacked the final flourish due to Andre Russell's unfortunate run out.
MI were tasked with chasing 170 runs, and they kept losing wickets at regular intervals from the word go. Despite a very deep batting unit, they were reduced to 71-6 in the 12th over. The last remaining batting pair of Suryakumar Yadav and Tim David kept the side in the hunt. However, the task proved to be too steep as MI were bundled out for 145.
Fans reacted to the riveting game of cricket, and here are some of the responses on social media.
"Let your apology be louder than the disrespect!," one tweet read
This is High time that KKR Fans should start giving some respect to Shreyas Iyer.," another tweet read
"Today's game between KKR and MI is what a T20 game should be." one fan wrote.
"Would take this any day. Beautiful victory for us" - KKR skipper Shreyas Iyer
KKR's woeful record against MI has always dominated the pre-match chatter whenever these two teams have squared up against one other. However, this marked a golden opportunity for KKR to script a win on enemy turf.
This is considering how MI have been struggling and the Knight Riders have been dominating. The two-time winners lived up to their reputation, and despite some hiccups, especially at the start, got the job done.
"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," Shreyas Iyer said during the post-match presentation.
"Certainly, with this impact player rule, it has helped us in this game. Manish has been eyeing an opportunity from Day 1. Today he got it. We got to a commendable total. All I had to say to the boys was we can defend it with our bowling lineup," he added.
The Knight Riders now have 14 points after playing 10 matches with a very healthy net run-rate of +1.098.