Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) are three-time IPL champions. But 25 matches into the IPL 2026 season, they were looking anything but winners: five losses in six games with one washout. Then began the turnaround: six wins in seven games, and suddenly, they are in with a shot of making the playoffs. Which makes it, as Abhinav Mukund put it, “a great story”.

“I think they’ve got their tactics right,” Abhinav said on ESPNcricinfo TimeOut after KKR beat Mumbai Indians (MI) by four wickets on Wednesday at home at Eden Gardens. “They have got their combinations right. They have played to their strengths. The [batting] still may not be firing on all cylinders, but they have basically been very good in the aspects that we thought that KKR would be good in, which is spin.

“Their pace bowlers have come together a little bit. They’ve got Cam Green bowling and picking up wickets. So a lot of good things going for Kolkata Knight Riders and a form team is always dangerous. And teams will be thinking they would rather face Punjab Kings [PBKS] now than KKR. And that’s something we wouldn’t have said at the start of the IPL.”

As the IPL has worn on and spinners have started coming into the contests more and more, KKR have started to look more competent. Sunil Narine has gone at 6.40 – the best economy rate in the tournament so far – while picking up 14 wickets, while Varun Chakravarthy, after a terrible start to the competition, has ten wickets at an economy rate of 8.78. Anukul Roy has also had a say in a couple of outcomes. All this, even as quick bowler Kartik Tyagi has reached No. 5 on the Purple Cap table.

“Whenever they had good seasons [recently], Varun and Narine have done well. And now they’ve got Anukul as well, even though he didn’t bowl much today,” Wasim Jaffer said. “But that’s been the story. Coming into the tournament, Varun wasn’t in the best of form. Even Narine wasn’t at his best, like how he’s performing now.

“That has been their strength. But finding that right combination probably hurt them in the initial games: finding who will open, who will play where, where Cam Green fits, their bowling struggles. Lot of players missed out [Mustafizur Rahman and Harshit Rana], players didn’t come in time [Matheesha Pathirana]. But I think they just found the right combination in the nick of time.”

Now there’s just one game left to go in the league stage, against Delhi Capitals (DC) on Sunday at Eden Gardens again. Win it, and a couple of other results go their way, and KKR would have scripted a bit of a fairy tale.