Shreyas Iyer-led Kolkata Knight Riders defeated Sunrisers Hyderabad by eight wickets to win the IPL 2024 final at the MA Chidambaram Stadium on Sunday (May 26).
KKR continued their dominance over SRH by defeating them for the third time this season. Incidentally, both the teams started their IPL 2024 campaign by facing each other and KKR won that game by 4 runs.
Their second match came in the qualifiers and KKR had thrashed SRH by eight wickets on that occasion before winning the final by the same margin. KKR lost the toss, but it didn’t take them long to make SRH regret their decision to bat first. Led by Mitchell Starc, KKR made a solid start with the ball. The left-arm pacer castled Abhishek Sharma with a beauty in the first over to set the tone.
In the second over, Vaibhav Arora dismissed Travis Head for a duck before Starc dismissed Rahul Tripathi to leave SRH reeling at 21 for 3 in the fifth over. The Hyderabad-based team continued to lose wickets at regular intervals and eventually huffed and puffed their way to a modest 113. For KKR, Andre Russell picked up three wickets while Starc and Harshit Rana claimed two each.
In response, KKR got off to a shaky start with the bat as Sunil Narine was out for just 6. However, Venkatesh Iyer scored a quickfire fifty to lead KKR to a resounding victory. The left-hander scored an unbeaten 52 off just 26 balls, while Rahmanullah Gurbaz also played a crucial 39-run knock.
Shreyas Iyer, delighted with the title:
At the end of the final, KKR captain Shreyas Iyer expressed his delight at his team’s performance throughout the season. The right-handed batsman termed the victory over SRH as “absolutely complete” and highlighted that KKR played the entire season as invincibles.
“Absolutely comprehensive. This is what we demand of the team and each individual. They rose to the occasion and the feeling is difficult to express. We played like invincibles all season long. There is a lot to appreciate right now.” said Shreyas Iyer.
“There’s a lot to appreciate right now. It’s nice, the performance has been impeccable throughout. I’m running out of words right now. We’ve been tremendous since the first game, today we took a step forward. All we demand of ourselves is ourselves was to back each other, whatever the situation, the game could go either way.” he added.
Talking about SRH’s performance throughout the season and the match, Shreyas Iyer said: “They (SRH) have played phenomenal cricket all season long. We were lucky to play first and every situation went in our favour. Thanks to SRH for the way they played. We look forward to playing more competitive cricket.
Iyer concluded by praising Starc for delivering in the high-pressure games. The KKR captain also praised the pacer for his attitude and said:
“That’s when all the great players stand up, right! It was a high-pressure game and he’s been very good off the field. He’s never shown any complacency in his work ethic. He stepped up in the suitable occasion.
“He’s got that magic wand (over Russell), he’s wanting to pick wickets. When I look at him, I know he can look at it. All the guys stepped up at the right time. It made it easier. It’s been a perfect season,” he added.