CHENNAI: Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) quicks made short work of the Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) forcing the Pat Cummins side to unfold on a score of 113 in the title clash of the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2024 on Sunday here at the MA Chidambaram Stadium.
On a night with clouds hovering over Chepauk, KKR pacers inflicted carnage on a red soil surface which offered more bounce for the speedsters.
It all started with Mitchell Starc putting on an exhibition with the new ball to put Hyderabad on the back foot through his opening spell, returning with a figure of 2-14 while Andre Russell, Sunil Narine and Varun Chakaravarthy combined well in the middle phase to pile the misery with Russell finishing with three wickets in just 2.3 overs, conceding 19.
Put to bat first, Starc with an outstanding opening over dimmed SRH openers’ hopes of forming a strong partnership. The Aussie pacer, who was acquired by KKR for a whopping price of Rs 24.75 crores, becoming the most expensive player of the tournament’s history, gave SRH a big blow as he bowled a top-notch delivery to remove opener Abhishek Sharma for two in the first over of the innings.
The right-arm fast-medium Vaibhav Arora piled more misery on SRH as he dismissed Travis Head for a duck.
SRH was blown away by Starc’s inswingers as the pacer delivered a terrific delivery which Rahul Tripathi mistimed to hand a catch to Ramandeep Singh at the mid-wicket.
After three dismissals Aiden Markram and Nitish Reddy then held the charge to take SRH past 40/3 after 6 overs. Markram then opened his hands and cracked 17 off Vaibhav’s over, slamming back-to-back two boundaries.
Harshit Rana then bagged his first wicket of the night, removing Nitish Reddy for 13 in the 7th over. After some superb stuff from the KKR pacers, captain Shreyas Iyer introduced spin by giving the bowl to Sunil Narine, who kept the run flow in check.
Andre Russell came into the attack and got a wicket of set batter Markram for 20 and in his next over he removed Abdul Samad for 4.
Harshit then dismissed Heinrich Klaasen for 16 and the last pure batter of SRH also departed leaving Hyderabad’s hope of scoring a big total in a ditch. This was the second-lowest score at the fall of 7th wicket in an IPL final.
Pat Cummins kept piling runs and rotating strikes, however, the captain failed to guide his team to a big total as Russell bagged the last wicket bundling out SRH for 113 in 18.3.
Brief score: Sunrisers Hyderabad 18.3 (Pat Cummins 24, Aiden Markram 20; Andre Russell 3-19) vs Kolkata Knight Riders. (ANI)
