In the IPL 2024 final held in Chennai, Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) emerged victorious against Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH), securing their third IPL title after a gap of almost ten years.
After limiting SRH’s renowned batting line-up to a decent score in the beginning, KKR’s opening batsmen efficiently completed their objective with ample time and wickets in hand.
Mitchell Starc, the Australian and KKR pace spearhead, teamed up with Vaibhav Arora to swiftly dismantle Abhishek Sharma’s defense in the opening over of the match. Shortly after, Vaibhav dismissed SRH’s in-form opener Travis Head for a first-ball duck, causing the ‘Orange Army’ to stumble to 6-2 within just two overs. By the conclusion of the initial powerplay, SRH faced a challenging situation at 40-3, with Starc successfully dismissing Rahul Tripathi, the number three batsman, for a mere nine runs.
At 21-3, ex-SRH captain and middle-order batsman Aiden Markram carefully maintained the scoreboard alongside Nitish Kumar Reddy. The duo managed to withstand KKR’s aggressive new-ball bowling for some time, bringing their team close to the 50-run milestone.
Nevertheless, Reddy’s departure due to Harshit Rana’s delivery and Markram’s mistimed shot against Andre Russell compounded SRH’s troubles, leaving them at 62-5.
With SRH’s top five batsmen dismissed at 62-5, fast bowlers Harshit Rana and Andre Russell swiftly took care of the lower order, supported by spinners Sunil Narine and Varun Chakravarthy.
Russell ended with remarkable figures of 3-19 from 2.3 overs. He dismantled Aiden Markram’s solid innings and then cleaned up SRH’s tail. Meanwhile, Rana claimed 2-24 from his spell.
Narine and Chakravarthy contributed with one wicket each, while the KKR bowlers as a whole completely dominated SRH’s entire batting line-up, restricting them to a mere 113 runs in under 19 overs.
Even though opener Sunil Narine was dismissed early, KKR’s number three Venkatesh Iyer and Afghanistan-import Rahmanullah Gurbaz dominated SRH bowlers right from the start. The duo managed to score 91 runs together for the second wicket, leading KKR to a strong position of 72-1 by the conclusion of the opening powerplay.
Venkatesh Iyer struck six boundaries and three sixes to crush SRH’s remaining hope within the initial 10 overs of KKR’s run-chase. The dynamic number three batsman scored the highest with an impressive 26-ball 52*, and sealed the victory alongside captain Shreyas Iyer.
KKR’s dominant performance from their top-order batsmen led to a comprehensive victory over SRH, winning by eight wickets with 57 balls remaining. This win marked the end of their 10-year title drought as they lifted the IPL 2024 trophy.
