Mitchell Starc picks 3 wickets in 4 balls after wife Alyssa Healy disappointed in stands at first-ball six in MI vs KKR

Mumbai Indians needed 32 off 12 balls when Kolkata Knight Riders captain Shreyas Iyer threw the ball to Mitchell Starc. Despite his poor returns in IPL 2024, the KKR captain had full confidence in his premier pacer.

The start was not good. Tim David clubbed Starc’s pace-on length delivery over fine leg for a six. Before this match, Starc was going at nearly 12 runs an over and his record in the death overs was worse. Surely, the KKR camp’s heart would be racing.

What about Starc himself? As the ball sailed into the crowd, the cameras panned towards Starc’s wife and Australia’s women’s team captain Alyssa Healy, sitting in the Wakhede stands. She was disappointed, to say the least, and a bit taken aback, too. Her husband doesn’t stay down for too long. But this year’s IPL has been tough on the Australian quick. It just hasn’t worked for him.

As Starc walked back to his mark, the tension in his body was evident. The slower ball into the wicket had been working for bowlers of both sides. Should Starc try that? But it’s not his natural delivery. The Australian pace spearhead decided to stick to his pacey yorkers. It was a low full toss, David smacked it but didn’t get the elevation. He was caught at long off by Iyer. The jubilation in the KKR said it all. But the job was far from over. Scoring 26 off 10 balls is not an impossible task, certainly not in this IPL.

Starc knew this. He nailed another yorker. It caught the toe end of new man Piyush Chawla. Sunil Narine took a simple catch at cover. Two-in-two for Starc. IPL costliest player was slowly but surely turning it around for himself and for KKR.

The next ball was another perfect yorker. Jasprit Bumrah, the batter, would have been proud of it. He somehow managed to squeeze out the single. But Starc had his tail up. The radar was right, the confidence high and the momentum with him. The next ball tailed in to Gerald Coetzee. The South African was way too late to bring the bat down. The ball flattened his middle stump. And for the first time in this year’s IPL, the world saw Starc’s raw emotions.

He screamed his lungs out. It meant a lot to him. He had way below his standards and three wickets in four balls to lead his side to victory would do him a world of good. he finished with figures of 4/33. KKR won the match by 24 runs to end a 12-year-long wait for a win against MI at the Wankhede.

Mumbai was all out with seven balls to spare.

Kolkata was dismissed for 169 off the second-to-last ball and led by Venkatesh Iyer’s 70 off 52 balls.

Kolkata had lost seven straight times at Wankhede Stadium since 2013.

The Knight Riders remained second overall, and Mumbai was ninth and all but eliminated from playoff contention.