Can KKR end their 12-year voodoo at Wankhede? – T20 IPL 2024

Match details

Mumbai Indians (ninth) vs Kolkata Knight Riders(second) Hyderabad, 1930 IST (1400 GMT)

Big picture – Can Rohit Sharma get inspired by Sunil Narine?

Unlike most other head-to-head clashes this IPL, Mumbai Indians (MI) and Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) will face-off for the first time this season, and at a venue where KKR wouldn’t even want to look at their record. In all these years at the IPL, KKR have recorded just the solitary win at the Wankhede against MI, which came back in 2012. Fun fact: Sunil Narine was the Player of the Match on that night, for his 4 for 15, and all eyes will be on him again, but for his swashbuckling opening knocks this time.

He could have a number of things going in his favour on Friday night – a flat deck, short boundaries, his red-hot form and confidence, good bounce that sets the ball up for big shots, and a bowling attack that, barring Jasprit Bumrah, isn’t inspiring much confidence right now.

Narine also boasts of a remarkable record against MI’s opener Rohit Sharma – nine dismissals – which is the most in al T20s after Dwayne Bravo’s 10 against Kieron Pollard.

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Rohit, apart from getting inspired by Narine’s free-spirited batting, could also take confidence from his own knock the last time he batted in Mumbai, an unbeaten century against CSK. For this game, a lot of talk will again be around Rohit against left-arm quicks, to whom he has fallen five out of nine teams this IPL with an average of just 17 in 44 balls. To be fair to Rohit, he also took on the likes of Mustafizur Rahman, Arshdeep Singh, Jaydev Unadkat, Spencer Johnson and Reece Topley without falling to them even once while smashing them at 235.71.

Can Mitchell Starc come out of his run-leaking rut and give KKR the early advantage against Rohit to break the voodoo at Wankhede?

Form guide

Mumbai Indians LLLWL (last five matches, most recent first)
Kolkata Knight Riders WLWLW

Team news and Impact Player strategy

Mumbai Indians
For a few games now, MI have been swapping Suryakumar Yadav and Nuwan Thushara and that is likely to continue.

Probable XII: 1 Ishan Kishan (wk), 2 Rohit Sharma, 3 Suryakumar Yadav, 4 Tilak Varma, 5 Hardik Pandya (capt), 6 Nehal Wadhera, 7 Tim David, 8 Mohammad Nabi, 9 Piyush Chawla, 10 Gerald Coetzee/Luke Wood, 11 Jasprit Bumrah, 12 Nuwan Thushara

Kolkata Knight Riders
KKR have been bringing in Impact Players depending on oppositions, such as Suyash Sharma against RCB, Anukul Roy on a slow track opposite a right-hand heavy PBKS, or Vaibhav Arora against Rajasthan Royals. Against Mumbai at Wankhede, they will likely stick to Narine, Starc, Harshit and Varun Chakravarty as the frontline bowlers and pick a fifth depending on the conditions.

Probable XII: 1 Phil Salt, 2 Sunil Narine, 3 Angkrish Raghuvanshi, 4 Shreyas Iyer, 5 Venkatesh Iyer, 6 Rinku Singh, 7 Andre Russell, 8 Ramandeep Singh, 9 Dushmantha Chameera/Mitchell Starc, 10 Varun Chakravarthy, 11 Harshit Rana 12 Anukul Roy/Suyash Sharma/Vaibhav Arora

In the spotlight – Jasprit Bumrah and Venkatesh Iyer

Jasprit Bumrah has been phenomenal this IPL, not least because of the wickets he has picked but because of his hard-to-believe economy rate of 6.40 in the most high-scoring IPL ever. He has, however, struck just once in the last three games and MI will desperately fall back on him again for early strikes. It’s possible oppositions have been seeing him through to attack the other bowlers, who had leaked plenty of runs, and how Bumrah beats that tactic will be interesting.

Venkatesh Iyer doesn’t look like the same batter that was saw last year, when he scored 404 runs while striking at 145.84, even though he was recovering from an ankle injury. He benefited immensely from the Impact Player rule but somehow he hasn’t reaped rewards this season despite the scoring rate going up across the teams and venues. He also looked scratchy early on the flattest of Eden Gardens pitches in the record game against PBKS. Another flat deck awaits, in Mumbai, and Venkatesh will hope he can improve on his strike rate of 146.66 so far this season.

Stats that matter

Will KKR bowl Narine early for his match-up against Rohit? In all T20s, Rohit has scored 187 runs off Narine’s 171 balls while getting out nine times.
Suryakumar has been watchful against KKR’s spinning duo Narine and Chakravarthy, scoring 89 runs off 78 balls against them in all T20s while getting out just once. Will he try to take them on on Friday, considering MI’s top order hasn’t been firing of late?
Tim David has been batting pretty low for MI but he will hope he gets to face Andre Russell, having smashed him for 57 off 25 balls in all T20s so far
Narine has faced just nine balls from Bumrah so far for four runs and one dismissal
Rohit Sharma needs another 29 runs to reach the 12000-mark in T20s
MI’s win percentage of 71.8% against KKR in the IPL is the most dominant head-to-head record in the league

Pitch and conditions

Dew hasn’t been as conspicuous as it has been in Chennai, but chasing is always the favourable option in Mumbai. Twenty-six out of the 42 matches have been won batting second since IPL 2021 and seven out of 11 since IPL 2023. It’s extremely humid in Mumbai and the temperature is expected to stay around 30 degrees even around 11pm, which won’t make bowling second too much better.

Vishal Dikshit is an assistant editor at ESPNcricinfo

Source: ESPN Crickinfo