IPL 2024: Rinku Singh, Manish Pandey take Mitchell Starc to the cleaners in KKR's 2nd warm-up fixture

Mitchell Starc took part in the second warm-up match of the Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) and conceded 40 runs from his four overs after Manish Pandey and Rinku Singh pulverised the star pacer with some brilliant strokeplay.

The Australian pacer arrived in Kolkata a couple of days ago and featured in the second warm-up fixture of the former two-time Indian Premier League (IPL) champions at the iconic Eden Gardens, Kolkata on Tuesday, March 19. The encounter was live-streamed across the social media platforms of the Knight Riders.

All eyes were on Starc, who was roped in by KKR at the IPL 2024 auction for a record-breaking amount of INR 24.75 crore. Representing Team Purple against Team Gold, the left-arm seamer got off to a fine start as he conceded a solitary run and dismissed Rahmanullah Gurbaz LBW in his first over.

However, in his second over, Starc found it difficult to stem the flow of runs against the exuberant Angkrish Raghuvanshi. After being beaten twice, the 22-year-old came back strongly and hit a couple of boundaries to put Starc on the backfoot. The first boundary came when Angrish stepped out and struck a pull shot. He followed it up with a delightful drive down the ground to hit back-to-back fours.

Starc was quite active in the field as he stopped a couple of boundaries and also took a catch to dismiss Venkatesh Iyer off Andre Russell's bowling.

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Manish Pandey and Rinku Singh assault Mitchell Starc at the death

Starc was brought back into the attack to bowl the 18th over. Team Gold were struggling at 148/8 at that stage. Rinku Singh welcomed the speedster with a cheeky late cut that found the fence. Two runs came off the next ball. Starc conceded four runs off the last four balls as ten runs came off the over.

The real damage was done in the 20th over which was bowled by Starc. The 34-year-old conceded 20 runs as the onslaught started with a six off a low full toss that was deposited over deep square leg for a six by Rinku. Starc managed to get the dangerous southpaw off strike of the next ball. Pandey managed to get his bat onto a widish full toss at the last moment to earn himself a boundary. The Aussie changed his plan and came from round the wicket. However, Pandey slashed the ball over the wicketkeeper to register consecutive boundaries.

Starc wore a wry smile as he knew he was under the pump. The experienced campaigner came back with a yorker as Pandey managed to pick up only a single. Rinku smashed the last ball through the off-side to finish the innings with a boundary. Starc finished with figures of 1/40 in his four overs.

Team Purple eventually chased down the 189-run target with one ball to spare as Ramandeep Singh smashed Vaibhav Arora for a six off the penultimate delivery.

KKR will kickstart their IPL 2024 campaign with a clash against Sunrisers Hyderabad at the Eden Gardens on Saturday, March 23.

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