A one sided domination shown by Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) in the final of TATA IPL 2024. They defeated the destructive batting unit in this season Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) by 8 wickets.
Sunrisers scored 113/10 in 18.3 overs and in reply Knight Riders chased down the target quite easily in 10.3 overs and scored 114/2. It was also the lowest total scored by a team in the history of IPL, earlier it was made by CSK who scored 125/9 against MI in 2013.
It was their 3rd title. Last they won in 2014 and their first title was in 2012. Both of the earlier titles came under the leadership of Gautam Gambhir and this time under his mentorship the team finished the 10 years waiting.
Kolkata in this season remain unbeaten against Hyderabad. First in the group stage, where Andre Russell’s impactful all-round performance got a close victory, then in the Qualifier 1, where also Knight Riders showed full domination and Starc demolished the top order with his fierce bowling.
So in the final, Pat Cummins after winning the toss, chooses to bat first as in most of the matches batting was their core strength and won most of them. On the other hand, Shreyas Iyer also wanted to bowl first if he won the toss. Therefore both the skippers got their preferable choice.
The orange army batters throughout the season provided threat to the opposition bowlers with their powerful hard hittings but this time they missed. There were no solid partnerships and wickets fell at regular intervals.
Skipper Pat Cummins was the highest scorer from the team with 24 runs and then next came Aiden Markram who scored 20 runs in 23 balls. At the end, they didn’t get the desired target and fell below 6 runs per over.
All the six bowlers of Knight Riders got wicket into their pockets. Their accurate line and length troubled the Sunrisers batters and made them sweat to score runs. Mitchell Starc once again provided the value of his experience and got two early wickets of Abhishek Sharma and Rahul Tripathi in the powerplay. He bowled 3 overs and conceded only 14 runs.
Andre Russell topped the chart with 3 wickets to his name and Harshit Rana got 2 wickets. Sunil Narine and Varun Chakaravarthy both got 1 wicket each. With this Chakaravarthy (21 wickets) ended the season with 2nd highest wicket taker.
In the chase, Knight Riders got the destructive start for which they are known for despite losing Sunil Narine (6 runs) in the 2nd over. Venkatesh Iyer once again showed his blasting batting after scoring unbeaten 52 runs in 26 balls. He hit 4 fours and 3 sixes in his knock.
He was well supported by Rahmanullah Gurbaz (39 runs) at the start as they both added 91 runs for the 2nd wicket. Shreyas Iyer remains unbeaten on 6 runs.
Pat Cummins and T Natarajan got 1 wicket each.
Mitchell Starc, KKR, Player of the Match
Player of the Series, Orange Cap and Purple Cap:
| Player of the series | Sunil Narine (KKR), 488 runs and 17 wickets |
| Orange Cap | Virat Kohli (RCB), 741 runs |
| Purple Cap | Harshal Patel (PBKS), 24 wickets |