Kolkata Knight Riders’ formidable attack put on a masterclass with the ball in hand, as they romped home to a thumping eight-wicket win over Sunrisers Hyderabad in the summit clash of IPL 2024. When Venkatesh Iyer scored the winning run in just the 11th over, he and Shreyas Iyer, the captain of the side, held their arms aloft to celebrate the franchise’s third IPL title.
Starc once more shines brightly
Cometh the hour, cometh the man! Just like Qualifier 1, Starc provided KKR a dream start by castling Abhishek Sharma with a delivery that angled in and nipped away to rattle the timber. It was a peach of a delivery. Both Abhishek and Travis Head, his opening partner, have similar methods, and Starc executed the plan to perfection. He also removed the dangerous Rahul Tripathi to leave Sunrisers in a spot of bother.
Inexperienced pace duo makes it count
There is a feeling that it is difficult to find the edge of Head’s bat. The reason is he doesn’t move his back foot across like some other professional batters and as a result, the ball might whistle past the edge. Vaibhav Arora, one of KKR’s uncapped players, however, bowled the perfect length — good length — and also got the line right to force Head to edge one. This was just brilliant execution from the bowler.
There was Harshit Rana, too. The pace bowler hit the deck hard and extracted movement off the seam to bag a couple of scalps. Such was the domination of KKR’s pace trioka that by the time the deadly spin duo of Varun Chakaravarthy and Sunil Narine were introduced, SRH were already reeling at 47 for 4.
Spinners and Russell wrap it up
On expected lines, the experienced spin attack of Narine and Chakaravarthy, alongside Russell provided the finishing touches as SRH could muster a mere 113. It wasn’t surprising to note that the veteran spinners were on the money on the big day. However, Russell’s return to form with the ball would have gladdened the hearts of the KKR camp. The all-rounder finished with a whopping 19 wickets in the tournament. Incidentally, KKR’s five main bowlers — Russell, Harshit, Varun, Narine and Starc — all finished with more than 17 wickets for the season.
Venkatesh Iyer’s fireworks
It wasn’t just about KKR’s bowlers, as Venkatesh Iyer too put on a wonderful exhibition of batting to floor the beleaguered SRH side. He smacked Bhuvneshwar Kumar for a couple of sixes and followed it by tonking one of SRH’s best bowlers of the season — T Natarajan — for three boundaries and one hit into the stands in the sixth over.
Forgettable day for SRH
What about SRH? On the given night, nothing went right for them. On a track that provided some assistance off the deck, Cummins and the management decided to bat. All that happened next was KKR’s all-round bowling attack ripped through the heart of the batting unit. Having said that, Cummins & Co. can be proud of the way they played through the season.