Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) entered the final of the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2024 with a commanding win over Sunrisers Hyderabad in the first qualifier on Tuesday.
Chasing 160 for the win, skipper Shreyas Iyer hit the winning runs with 38 balls to spare as KKR picked up an eight-wicket win over SRH.
After openers Rahmanullah Gurbaz and Sunil Narine gave the team a good start in their run chase, Venkatesh Iyer and captain Shreyas Iyer saw off the match hitting unbeaten half-centuries each.
Shreyas Iyer finished with 58* (24), while Venkatesh Iyer scored 51* (28). Although SRH bowlers could not stop the flow of runs, T Natarajan and Pat Cummins picked a wicket apiece in an otherwise day to forget for the Orange Army.
Having won the toss, SRH skipper Pat Cummins elected to bat in the first qualifier at the Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad. However, they got off to a devastating start losing both openers in the first two overs. Travis Head and Abhishek Sharma, who have combined throughout the season to score runs at an eye-watering rate, were stopped short by the KKR bowlers.
Rahul Tripathi anchored the innings scoring a valuable half-century with seven fours and a six. He was however, run out in a costly mixup. Heinrich Klaasen added 32 runs off 21 balls before being sent packing, while skipper Cummins added another 30 down the order to take the team total to 159 as KKR bowled them out.
Mitchell Starc was the pick of the bowlers for KKR taking three wickets at an economy of 8.50 in his four overs. Varun Chakravarthy picked up two as Vaibhav Arora, Harshit Rana, Sunil Narine and Andre Russel picked up a wicket apiece.
An overall poor performance with the bat, ball and also while fielding with several missed opportunities in dropped catches meant it was not their day. However, having finished second on the points table, SRH will get another chance when they play the eliminator against the winner of Qualifier 2.
On the other hand, KKR are gunning for their third title with Gautam Gambhir returning to the dug-out, having previously led the side to their only two triumphs in the IPL. KKR have been solid in all departments and will be the team to beat come Sunday (May 26).
