Kolkata : Lucknow Super Giants’s Mukul Choudhary snatched victory in a sensational, thrilling match against Kolkata Knight Riders by three wickets in the 14th match of the Indian Premier League 2026 at Eden Gardens, Kolkata. KKR once again faced defeat this season in a very close match.
Kolkata Knight Riders started the match with a few changes in the playing XI, adding Navdeep Saini and Rovman Powell, while Sunil Narine returned after being unavailable in the last match due to illness. However, Varun Chakravarthy did not play today due to injury. On the other side, Lucknow Super Giants continued with the same playing XI as in their previous match. The match began with the toss won by LSG, who chose to bowl first. For Kolkata Knight Riders, Ajinkya Rahane and Finn Allen came in to open. Allen lost his wicket in the 2nd over after scoring 9 off 8 balls. Angkrish Raghuvanshi came in at No. 3. Rahane and Raghuvanshi built an effective partnership of 84 runs, contributing well to the score, but were dismissed quickly one after another—Rahane scored 41 off 24 balls (c Mohammed Shami b Digvesh Rathi), and Raghuvanshi scored 45 off 35 balls (c Aiden Markram b M. Siddharth). After KKR lost these wickets, the run flow slowed down in the middle overs. Cameron Green and Rovman Powell then played well, remaining not out—Green scored 32 off 24 balls and Powell 39 off 24 balls—helping KKR finish with a competitive total of 181/4. Although KKR batted well, they were unable to post a bigger total due to tight bowling by LSG and the set batters getting out, which slowed the scoring rate in the middle overs.
The second innings started with Mitchell Marsh and Aiden Markram as openers for Lucknow Super Giants, but both got out early in the 4th over of Vaibhav Arora after scoring 15 off 11 and 22 off 15 balls respectively. Rishabh Pant came in at No. 3 but was dismissed in the 9th over when Cameron Green came to bowl for the first time this season after receiving fitness clearance from Cricket Australia (CA) to resume bowling duties in IPL 2026. In his very first over, he took a crucial wicket, dismissing Pant for 10 off 9 balls. Ayush Badoni came as an impact player and made a huge contribution, scoring 54 off 34 balls and maintaining the momentum in the middle overs before getting out (c Rinku Singh b Anukul Roy). Nicholas Pooran and Abdul Samad came in but lost their wickets early. In the 13th over, Mukul Choudhary came to bat and played an electrifying, fearless, and unbeaten knock of 54 off 27 balls at a strike rate of 200.00, hitting 2 fours and 7 sixes in the innings. In the death overs, Lucknow Super Giants needed 54 runs off 24 balls with only three wickets left. Mukul single-handedly took LSG to victory in a tense and crucial situation. In the final over, with 13 runs needed off 6 balls, Vaibhav Arora came to bowl. On the first ball, Avesh Khan handed the strike to Choudhary. A six came on the second ball, followed by two dots. Then came another incredible six over deep cover off a wide yorker. With 1 run needed off the last ball, Mukul swung hard, missed, but they scrambled through for a single. Raghuvanshi missed a direct hit at the striker’s end, sealing KKR’s fate as LSG completed the win. The unbeaten partnership added 54 runs, with Choudhary scoring 52 off 21 balls while Avesh contributed just one run. This became one of the highest eighth partnerships in a successful IPL chase. The 21-year-old wicketkeeper-batsman, playing his first IPL after being picked by LSG in the 2026 auction, became the main reason for LSG’s victory and was rightly awarded Player of the Match. On the other side, KKR performed better in bowling compared to the previous match, but unfortunately, their pace bowling became a weakness and a cause of the loss. Sunil Narine achieved a major milestone, becoming the first overseas player to take 200 T20 wickets in IPL history. He delivered a fantastic performance with figures of 4 overs, 1 wicket for just 13 runs. Narine has now played 183 matches and dismissed 200 batters.
With this win, LSG collected 4 points and moved to 5th position on the table, while KKR are in 9th position. KKR will face Chennai Super Kings on 14 April, and LSG will play against Gujarat Titans on 12 April. After this defeat, KKR will look to bounce back, while it remains to be seen whether LSG can carry forward their positive momentum.
