Mukul’s Wild IPL Rescue

Lucknow Super Giants looked finished at 128 for 7 chasing 182 at Eden Gardens on April 9, and then a 21-year-old playing only his third Indian Premier League match dragged them home on the last ball. Mukul Choudhary ended unbeaten on 54 from 27 balls as Lucknow won by three wickets against Kolkata Knight Riders. (espncricinfo.com) The strangest part was how slowly it began. Choudhary was 2 from 8 balls before he exploded into a 25-ball fifty and turned a routine chase into a scramble. (espncricinfo.com, hindustantimes.com) He walked in during the 13th over with Lucknow already wobbling at 104 for 5, and the collapse kept going around him to 125 for 6 and then 128 for 7. With 54 needed from the last 24 balls, Kolkata had the game in both hands. (espncricinfo.com) Then he started clearing the ropes instead of finding gaps. Choudhary hit seven sixes in his 27-ball innings, including two in one over off Kartik Tyagi that cut the target from 42 off 18 to 30 off 12. (espncricinfo.com, news18.com) The last over was even messier than the scoreline. Lucknow needed 14, Avesh Khan took a single first ball, Choudhary hit Vaibhav Arora for six, watched Arora bowl two dot balls, and then launched a near-yorker for another six to leave 1 needed off 1. (espncricinfo.com) He did not finish it with a clean boundary. Choudhary missed a slower bouncer on the last ball, but Lucknow stole the winning leg-bye, which made the chase feel less like a script and more like a street game that kept refusing to end. (espncricinfo.com) This was not a random net bowler having one lucky night. The official Indian Premier League profile lists Choudhary as a right-handed wicketkeeper-batter from Rajasthan, born on August 6, 2004, with 210 runs in his first seven domestic Twenty20 matches at a strike rate of 165.35. (iplt20.com) That domestic burst is why the auction moved so fast. Choudhary entered the 2026 mini-auction as an uncapped player with a base price of ₹30 lakh and ended up at ₹2.60 crore with Lucknow Super Giants. (iplt20.com) Lucknow coach Justin Langer had already said before the season that Choudhary could become the “scariest” finisher in India, and this was the first night that prediction looked less like coach-speak and more like scouting. ESPNcricinfo noted that only Kieron Pollard in 2013 has scored more than 50 runs in the last four overs of a successful Indian Premier League chase. (espncricinfo.com) For one evening, the established names were just the background. Ajinkya Rahane made 41, Angkrish Raghuvanshi made 45, Ayush Badoni made 54 for Lucknow too, but the match is going to be remembered for the new guy who turned 2 off 8 into 54 not out and made the final over look impossible right until it wasn’t. (espncricinfo.com, cricbuzz.com)