Mukul Choudhary brings LSG from the brink to defeat KKR by 3 wickets
KKR – 181/4 (Angkrish Raghuvanshi 45 off 33) lost to LSG – 182/7 (Mukul Choudhary 54 off 27) by 3 wickets
Man of the Match: Mukul Choudhary
Two evenly matched teams, fighting toe to toe till the last ball and with a little bit of luck, the match could have gone either way. It almost feels that we are talking about the previous day’s IPL contest between Gujarat Titans and Delhi Capitals, but the match was actually between Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) playing at their home venue, the historical Eden Gardens in Kolkata, against Lucknow Super Giants (LSG) at the 2026 IPL league match. This time, the result was reversed as LSG, batting second, scampered the one run required off a bye as the KKR wicketkeeper missed the throw to the stumps, leaving the packed Eden Gardens crowd stunned.
Swinging ball and gradual acceleration
LSG captain Pant won the toss and elected to bowl. It had rained earlier in the day, and the ball was expected to swing in the first few overs. And Mohammad Shami did make the ball talk. He generated extravagant swing in the first over, and Finn Allen was absolutely clueless against Shami’s bag of tricks. He got beaten thrice in three balls, twice on the outside edge and once on the inside. He looked more comfortable in the second over as Prince Yadav, much less experienced, bowled short and got hammered for two boundaries on the leg side. However, once he got his line right on the off stump, Allen had an ugly swipe at the ball, trying to get it to the leg side and got a huge top edge with the catch taken expertly by Digvesh Rathi right on the third man boundary. The camera seemed to pick up a slight movement on the boundary cushion, but there was no conclusive evidence. In any case, the umpire quickly, perhaps a bit too quickly, declared it out, and that was that for Fin Allen.
This brought in Raghuvanshi to the crease. The ball was still swinging, and he started carefully. Rahane was elegance personified, his off-side play was superb, especially an inside-out shot to left-arm spinner Siddharth to extra cover for a boundary. Raghuvanshi was on 6 off 10 balls when Avesh Khan was introduced in the last over of the powerplay, and Raghuvanshi decided that it was time to get a move on. Three shots on the offside, two around the cover region and one to the deep backward point fetched 14 runs. Avesh was again targeted by both batsmen in the ninth over and conceded two sixes, one to each batsman, to give away 15 runs. The score at the end of ten overs read 98/1, and KKR were on their way to a score in excess of 200.
Wickets and slowdown
Just when KKR was thinking of accelerating, Rathi got rid of Rahane against the run of play. The ball was short outside off, and Rahane hit it low to Shami at midwicket, who took the low catch superbly. In came Green, looking woefully out of form. Very next over, Siddharth got Raghuvanshi holed out straight down the throat of long on. Rinku came and could never find his timing. Soon after, he got his off stump rattled in a much better third over, bowled by Avesh Khan and KKR had found themselves in a hole. They had scored 17 in the five overs after the tenth and lost a further three wickets.
Powell launches off
After the start that they had in the first 10 overs, KKR had hoped that they would score at least 200, but after the 15th over, even 165 seemed difficult, especially with spinners Rathi and Siddharth keeping a vice-like grip on the scoring. Rovman Powell, a reputed six-hitter who is also known to start shakily against spinners, got his act together and launched the first ball of the sixteenth over high and mighty over long on to a flighted ball from Siddharth. Next over, he got hold of Prince Yadav’s full balls and got a six and a boundary. From 3 off six balls, he finished the innings not out at 39 off 24 balls. Powell’s big hitting seemed to rub off on Green, who had pottered on to 8 off 13 balls. A sweet six off Shami on the 19th over long on brought a smile of relief on his face, and it is difficult not to correlate his immense price tag this IPL season with the pressure he has had to face recently. He ended with a scratchy 32 not out off 24 balls, and KKR with a seemingly slightly below par 181/4.
KKR bowling according to plan
LSG has some powerful hitters at the top of the order, but the lower middle order looks shaky. They started the match with five tail-enders, and even after accounting for the impact sub, they have a long tail. They had bought Wanindu Hasaranga to fill this gap of an all-rounder, and his injury has left a big hole in the lineup. As per the latest report, the team is finalising a replacement.
KKR were aware of this issue, and they knew that if the big hitters Mitchell Marsh and Aiden Markram were starved of width and contained, it would put pressure on the whole lineup. They started the innings with Vaibhav Arora bowling short into the body of the right-handers and denying room to free their arms. The left-arm spinner Anukul Roy was deployed at the other end, bowling to the leg of the batsmen, cramping them. A few leg side wides were conceded, but the plan was followed faithfully. In between, Navdeep Saini, who is known for his express pace, came for the third over and started bowling slower balls that could be deciphered from his grip, watching from a mile away. A 17-run over followed, and Roy and Arora were promptly brought back to the attack.
Immediately, Arora stuck, getting Markram miscuing a pull and Marsh gloving to the keeper, both to short balls in the same over. Badoni came in as an impact sub and joined Rishabh Pant at the crease. Both initially played circumspectly, especially Narine. Pant has made a conscious decision this season to play straight and minimise risk, but soon top-edged a Green bouncer and fell for only 10. Pooran came and started hacking away with his bat without any conviction. He has been in poor form for some time now, and some experts attribute it to his retirement from international cricket, which has left him without enough practise against quality opposition. Despite a six against Green, he was caught at long on off Tyagi for 13 off 15 balls. Abdul Samad came and went for 2, getting bowled by Roy. LSG’s lower order was truly under pressure.
From 68/2 off seven overs, LSG was now 104/5 off 13 overs, and the middle over issue faced by KKR earlier seemed to be plaguing LSG now. At the other end, Badoni was timing the ball crisply and started to take toll on the KKR pacers. He got to his well-made 50 off 33 balls, but running out of support, he tried a desperate shot to launch Roy over long off and got caught. Narine finished his spell by getting the next man, Shami, caught out to a slog and finished with exceptional figures of 13/1 in four overs. Narine and KKR’s celebration on the wicket showed how much this match meant to them. With 54 runs required from 24 balls and three wickets remaining, the match seemed practically over in KKR’s favour.
Mukul Choudhary steals the show.
Few people are aware of Mukul Choudhary’s capabilities, and many expected the innings to fold quickly. But those who have seen him from close quarters speak very highly of him and say that the young lad has immense talent. The talent was evident immediately as we were reminded of a young Dhoni, as he played a helicopter shot for a six over long on to a yorker on the leg. Next, over a wide short ball from Tyagi was somehow hammered over long off, and another six over long on followed the same over. The equation was now 30 off 12 balls, and the KKR dugout looked quite nervous.
The hammering Choudhary had given Tyagi earlier prompted Rahane to bring Green again for the 19th over, and Green started promisingly with the bouncer barrage. The first two balls couldn’t be scored off with Choudhary lucky to escape a top edge which evaded the scrambling fielders. The same over a slow short ball was swivelled over long leg for six, a lucky top edge for four and another bouncer was absolutely thrashed over deep midwicket for six. KKR looked shell-shocked at this moment.
With 14 runs remaining off 6 balls, his batting partner Avesh Khan took a single off the first ball, leaving 13 off 5 to get. Single was out of the question, and it was all up to Choudhary. He bided his time for the right opportunity. Arora bowled a short ball on the off and was dispatched over long leg for another six. Seeing that the short ball ploy was not working, KKR changed their plan to a wide yorker. The plan actually worked for two balls, where Choudhary could not connect two accurate yorkers. The third one was slightly off, and Choudhary absolutely smashed it over deep cover for another flat six. With one run required off one ball, Arora bowled short, and Choudhary swished and missed, but Avesh Khan at the non-striker end ran like a hare, and KKR wicketkeeper Raghuvanshi missed a direct hit to the stumps for LSG to complete an improbable and remarkable 3-wicket victory.