Kolkata Knight Riders crowned IPL 2024 Champions after defeating Sunrisers Hyderabad by 8 wickets
Kolkata Knight Riders defeated Sunrisers Hyderabad by 8 wickets to lift the 2024 Indian Premier League title on Sunday at the MA Chidambaram Stadium in Chennai.
SRH skipper Pat Cummins won the toss and decided to bat first while KKR skipper Shreyas Iyer once again opined that he would have fielded first on the mixed soil pitch.
Both teams stuck to their winning combinations as Abhishek Sharma and Travis Head walked out to bat against Mitchell Starc and the Punjab all-rounder showed nerves pretty early by rushing into a double on the third ball of the innings. The Australian fast bowler had the last laugh though as he dismissed Sharma on the penultimate ball of the first over.
Head once again failed to trouble the scorers against KKR as Vaibhav Arora dismissed the big-match player on a golden duck with Rahmanullah Gurbaz pouching the catch behind the wicket.
Rahul Tripathi and Aiden Markram tried to rebuild the innings after a false start for the team in Orange but Starc struck once again as Tripathi skied the ball high in the air and Ramandeep Singh was safe as a locker as he completed the catch safely.
Markram started the sixth over with two consecutive boundaries and Nitish Reddy, celebrating his 21st birthday on May 26, also joined in with a maximum later in the over. Reddy also welcomed Harshit Rana into the attack with a four, crunched through the point region but the young speedster took his revenge by dismissing the birthday boy on the last ball of the over.
Sunil Narine was introduced into the attack in the eighth over and KKR’s birthday boy gave away only four runs while Rana conceded a four to Klaasen on the first ball of the ninth over followed by another quiet over from Narine.
Andre Russell didn’t come out to bat but starred with the ball in hand
Struggling to accumulate runs at a quicker pace, Markram decided to up the ante but holed out in the deep as Starc completed the catch off Andre Russell’s bowling. Player of the Match from Qualifier 2, Shahbaz Ahmed, walked out to bat at No.7 and got a maximum courtesy of a top edge on the last ball of the 11th over.
Varun Chakravarthy was introduced into the attack next and the mystery spinner dismissed Shahbaz with Narine pouching the ball at short fine-leg. SRH was once again forced to use the Impact Sub early on as Abdul Samad came in to bat but the power-hitter was also dismissed cheaply as Gurbaz dived to his right to gift Russell his second wicket of the evening.
Skipper Cummins walked out with the intent of putting up a respectable total on the board as he scored two fours off his first three balls and could have formed a big partnership with Klaasen but the Proteas wicket-keeper batter chopped on the ball onto his stumps becoming Rana’s second victim of the evening.
Narine could have had Cummins’ wicket in the next over but Starc dropped the chance giving some respite to his compatriot who struck a maximum off Rana’s bowling after the Strategic Time Out. In the 18th over, Narine finally had his first wicket of the evening as Jaydev Unadakat was trapped Leg Before Wicket.
Russell took his third wicket of the match as Cummins once again played an elevated shot in the direction of Starc who made no mistake on the second opportunity dismissing the Sunrisers on a total of 113 runs, the lowest total in an IPL final in 33 instances while the total was also the joint second-lowest in SRH’s history.
Chasing the target of 114 runs, Gurbaz hammered the ball for a four on the second ball of the innings and Narine continued the onslaught by targeting opposition skipper Cummins, smashing a maximum on his first ball followed by his dismissal on the second ball with Shahbaz completing the catch at deep mid-wicket.
Narine’s wicket didn’t dampen KKR’s spirit as Gurbaz smashed a four off Cummins before Venkatesh Iyer got off the mark with a boundary against Bhuvneshwar Kumar and followed it with two maximums down the ground which forced Cummins to revert to T Natarajan, SRH’s most successful bowler in IPL 2024.
After a four on the first ball of Natarajan’s over, Gurbaz survived a run-out chance with Reddy giving his best on the field after failing to score big in the crucial match. In the sixth over, Venkatesh went berserk and targeted Natarajan with two consecutive boundaries to start the over followed by a maximum and another four which helped KKR reach the score of 72/1 by the end of the powerplay, the highest in any IPL final so far.
The onslaught didn’t stop after spin was introduced into the attack as Gurbaz procured a four and a maximum on consecutive deliveries bowled by Shahbaz before smashing another four against Unadkat.
In the next over, Gurbaz stepped out and smacked a straight maximum over the bowler’s head but Shahbaz took his revenge a couple of balls later as the umpire adjudged the Afghani wicket-keeper batter LBW and the lack of technology frustrated Gurbaz who was looking for a half-century in the crucial fixture.
Skipper Shreyas got off the mark with a reverse sweep that ran to the fence signifying the confidence instilled by the KKR management in their players. Venkatesh brought up his half-century off 24 balls in the 10th over and scored the winning runs as well in the 11th over as the Knight Riders won the match with 57 balls to spare to lift their third IPL title.