It was 2012. Kolkata Knight Riders finally ended their struggle for the IPL championship as they lifted the prestigious trophy for the first time at the iconic MA Chidambaram Stadium under the aggressive, fearless captaincy of Gautam Gambhir. Cut to 2024. Kolkata Knight Riders ended the 10-year-long drought as they were once again crowned the IPL champions at the same venue.
This time, under the mentorship of Gambhir. The proverbial circle of life rather cricket was completed on May 26, Sunday as KKR became the third time winner of IPL. They are now the third team after Chennai Super Kings and Rajasthan Royals to win the title three times or more.
The key role in this win was played by the KKR bowlers as they turned the game into a one-sided contest by destroying the formidable batting line-up of Sunrisers Hyderabad. The Orange Army, which began the trend of mega totals in this edition of IPL, who smashed highest and second highest innings total in the history of IPL, were reduced to a paltry 113 all out at Chepauk.
Winning the toss and electing to bat first, SRH skipper Pat Cummins was distraught in the dugout as he saw the top order collapsing like a pack of cards. First came what many are calling the ‘ball of tournament’ by the most expensive player in IPL history – Mitch Starc. He got Abhishek Sharma for 2. Then came Vaibhav Arora, who dismissed Travis Head for a golden duck. This was just the beginning of the carnage at Chepauk.
Not once did the SRH manage to put up some defence against KKR bowling. Andre Russell picked up three wickets in the middle overs. All six bowlers deployed by KKR picked up 1 wicket in the first over of their spell. Starc (2-14), Russell (3-19), Harshit Rana (2-24) never let SRH recover from this sheer bloodbath. At 113 all out, SRH scored the lowest total in the history of IPL finals since 2008. Was it the red-soil pitch, the consistency of KKR bowlers, the poor reading of SRH batters – the end result was KKR needed 114 runs in 120 balls to clinch their third IPL title.
In the reply, KKR batters knew what the had to do. SRH bowlers looked completely listless. Skipper Cummins did try to bring the team back in the game when he took the wicket of Sunil Narine inside the powerplay. But the target for too less and bowling attack was not sharp enough to push KKR chase on the edge. Gurbaz was the last wicket that KKR lost due to DRS. With Venkatesh Iyer’s comfortable knock of 52 off 26, Shreyas Iyer joined him towards the end and it is just a matter of formality. Venkatesh slammed the winning run and Kolkata won the IPL 2024 by defeating SRH by 8 wickets.
KKR vs SRH IPL Final 2024: Stats that matter
In this season of IPL, KKR suffered just three losses. This is a record in itself. Before this, Gujarat Titans had lost 4 games in 2022 edition and Rajasthan Royals had also lost 3 matches in the inaugural edition of IPL.