LSG vs KKR: Mitchell Starc fires shots at his critics after 4-wicket haul vs Mumbai Indians

Senior Australia pacer Mitchell Starc clapped back at his critics with his sensational death-bowling spell against the Mumbai Indians last night.

Thanks to Mitchell Starc's bowling performance in the 2nd innings and Venkatesh Iyer's knock in the 1st innings, the Kolkata Knight Riders wrote history.

KKR's dominating 24-run victory at the Wankhede stadium was their first victory at the venue in 12 years against the 5-time champions. With the win, Kolkata moved 2 points clear of 3rd and 4th placed Lucknow and Hyderabad.

Mitchell Starc peaking in IPL 2024 at the right time

Even though the Kolkata Knight Riders eventually won, the situation wasn't a 'win-win' one at the start of the match. After Hardik Pandya had put the visitors to bat first, Shreyas Iyer's side was reduced to 5 wickets within the powerplay itself.

While Nuwan Thusara picked up the wickets of Phil Salt, Angkrish Raghuvanshi and Shreyas Iyer, Pandya and Piyush Chawla bagged Narine and Rinku.

The entire top-middle order was sent back to the pavilion for just 32 runs. At 57/5 in 6.1 overs, it seemed as if Mumbai was nearing towards a wipeout of the KKR batting line-up but Venkatesh Iyer and Manish Pandey had other ideas.

The duo went on to put together a partnership of 83-runs for the 6th wicket with Pandey leaving the crease after helping KKR score 140.

Venkatesh Iyer, who was adjudged as man of the match, smacked 70 off 52 and helped KKR post 169 runs on the board from being 57/5. The remaining batting tail - Andre Russell, Ramandeep Singh, Mitchell Starc, and Vaibhav Arora shared just 9 runs amongst them.

In the 2nd innings, the KKR bowling line-up had an imperative task to stop the dangerous batting attack of Mumbai Indians and Mitchell Starc got to his job quickly. Starc picked up the wicket of Ishan Kishan for 13 runs before Sunil Narine removed Rohit Sharma for 11, Varun Chakravarthy removed Naman Dhir for the same score.

Nehal Wadhera's wicket was claimed by Sunil Narine, Tilak Varma became Chakravarthy's 2nd wicket. Skipper Hardik Pandya fell prey to Andre Russell, who also removed set batter Suryakumar Yadav for 56.

With Tim David still at the crease, the match could have gone anywhere but Mitchell Starc came up with his best performance of IPL 2024. After getting a six in his first ball of the 19th over (Starc's 4th), the left-arm pacer bowled a full-toss delivery to David.

On a lucky day, David would have seen the ball sailing over the rope but the ball ended up finding Shreyas Iyer's safe pair of hands at extra cover. Mitchell Starc then removed Piyush Chawla in the very next ball and claimed his 4th (10th of the innings) with a clean bowled to Gerald Coetzee. Starc eventually finished with figures of 4/33.

Starc says KKR's winning run is all that matters

Speaking after the match, Mitchell Starc replied on the criticism he was facing for his poor economy rate this IPL season. He stated that he's not the only one who has conceded runs and that his performance isn't under much scrutiny since the team is doing very well.

"There's not been many bowlers go for runs, has there? Look, it's been it's been fantastic. We are sitting second, So we're doing We're doing really well," Mitchell Starc said after the game." - Starc said after the match.

Lastly, Starc claimed that in the shortest format, things don't always go the same way as one wants it to but he could have had a better start. "It is T20 cricket, things do not always go the way you want it to go. Obviously, I would have liked to do better at the start, but it is what it is, we are sitting second, that's all that matters." - Mitchell Starc concluded.

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