The Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) players took a short flight from Mumbai to Lucknow ahead of their next game of IPL 2024 on Sunday. After breaching the Wankhede Stadium, a venue where they hadn't won against Mumbai Indians (MI) in 12 years, KKR have now set their sights on a league double over Lucknow Super Giants (LSG), having beaten them at Eden Gardens earlier this season. During their match against MI, KKR were without emerging pacer Harshit Rana, who was serving a one-match ban for a Code of Conduct breach.
Harshit had been handed a one-match suspension along with a 100 per cent of his match fee fine for breaching the IPL Code of Conduct during a match against Delhi Capitals.
The KKR pacer was found guilty of committing a Level 1 offence under Article 2.5 of the IPL's Code of Conduct. Rana admitted to the offence and accepted the sanction.
For the unversed, Harshit has made the headlines multiple time this season due to his "flying kiss" celebration. He had given a fiery send off to SRH batter Mayank Agarwal earlier during the season, and came close to doing the same to DC wicketkeeper-batter Abhishek Porel.
However, former KKR captain Nitish Rana poked fun at Harshit during their flight to Lucknow. In a video shared by KKR on their official X handle, Nitish asked Harshit by saying, "How about another flying kiss?"
While Harshit couldn't contain his laughter, he said "no" to Nitish's request without any second thoughts.
During his last outing, Rana picked two wickets against DC. In total, he has bagged 11 wickets in eight matches.
With 12 points, KKR is currently ranked second in the rankings and has the highest NRR of any team in the competition, at 1.096.