Lucknow Super Giants came into the 38th match of IPL 2026 needing control before anything else. Against a Kolkata Knight Riders batting unit that has too often needed its middle order to repair early damage, Rishabh Pant’s decision to bowl first at Ekana put the game immediately into the hands of his new-ball attack.
Mohsin Khan made that call count. By the end of the Powerplay, KKR were 31 for 4. Mohsin’s first three overs read 3-1-14-3. That spell shows: a fast bowler cutting off scoring options until the batters started making poor choices.
How Mohsin Khan broke KKR’s Powerplay
Mohsin’s spell was built on length denial. He did not give KKR the obvious full ball to drive cleanly or the loose short ball to pull. His main working area was the hard length and back-of-length channel, mostly around off, fourth stump and fifth stump. That forced KKR’s right-handers into a risky zone: play away from the body, or create their own scoring room.
That was the first squeeze.
Ajinkya Rahane’s early struggle showed the effect. Mohsin hit the pitch, kept the ball around middle and off, and made Rahane play across the line before he had any rhythm. The leg-before appeal on the third ball of the second over did not survive because ball-tracking showed it pitching outside leg, but the delivery still mattered. Rahane had already been rushed into a big heave. The bowler had planted the seed.
Tim Seifert’s wicket came from the next layer of the plan. Mohsin mixed the fuller ball with the back-of-length channel. At 1.5, Seifert was beaten outside off after trying to drive on the up. One ball later, Mohsin stayed in the same attacking corridor, full enough to bring the drive, not full enough to make it safe. Seifert leaned forward, drove uppishly from the toe end, and picked out cover. The wicket was perfectly baited by Mohsin Khan.
Rahane’s wicket was the sharpest piece of bowling in the spell. Mohsin had already denied him pace-on scoring access. Then came the change-up: 124.6 kph, good length, around leg. Rahane backed away for room and tried to lift over the bowler. The bat turned in his hands. The leading edge went to Aiden Markram at mid-off.
That dismissal was about tempo manipulation. Rahane was not beaten by extra pace. He was beaten because Mohsin had made him desperate to manufacture pace and space.
Rovman Powell’s wicket completed the break. The ball itself was not unplayable: short, into the body, around leg. But Powell arrived with KKR already damaged. He tried to pull from a cramped position, got glove, and Rishabh Pant completed the catch. Pressure had turned an ordinary short ball into a wicket ball.
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That is the real value of the spell. Mohsin did not rely on magic deliveries. He created a batting environment where normal strokes became dangerous.
KKR’s Powerplay also exposed a structural problem. They had no stable response once the first wicket fell. The batters kept looking for release shots instead of absorbing the spell.
Mohsin’s discipline allowed LSG to control both ends of the Powerplay. He gave away only 14 runs in three overs, bowled a maiden, and struck once in each of his first three overs. That is proper scoreboard strangulation.
The spell worked because every ball had a job. The hard length denied front-foot fluency. The fourth-stump line invited unsafe drives. The short ball cramped the body. The slower ball punished premeditation. Together, they dragged KKR out of their preferred game and into a fight they were not ready to play.
KKR did not simply lose early wickets. They lost batting tempo and control inside the first seven overs of the innings. Mohsin Khan did not just win the Powerplay for LSG. He made Kolkata’s first six overs unusable.
He did not stop there. Rishabh Pant brought him back during the 11th over of the KKR innings. Cameron Green was looking dangerous by then and was threatening to take the visistors to a more than competitive total. However, Mohsin delivered once again. He picked up the wicket of Green and followed it up with the wicket of Anukul Roy the next delivery.
Mohsin Khan finished with five wickets for 23 runs in his four overs. His spell knocked the air out of KKR.