Kolkata On Top As Sunrisers Hyderabad Lose 6 Wickets

WICKET! SIXTH SRH BATTER BITES THE DUST!

Varun Chakaravarthy is handed the ball in the 12th over, and he says he can do exactly what Russell can by getting a wicket in his first over. Shahbaz Ahmed top-edges the ball into the hands of Sunil Narine at short fine-leg.

SRH are 72/6 after 12 overs.

Two South African batters are out in the middle, but there is no tinge of Protea Fire about how they are batting currently. Markram and Klaasen are exercising caution, for SRH certainly cannot afford another wicket here.

SRH are 61/4 after 10 overs.

Seven runs comes from Harshit Rana’s second over, including a boundary. Rana, however, will not be too disappointed with it, for the boundary came off an outside edge.

SRH are 58/4 after 9 overs.

Sunil Narine has had a good start with the ball, conceding only four runs in his first over. The ball has now started gripping. Meanwhile, the new batter in for SRH is Heinrich Klaasen, who is regarded as among the more profilic players of spin currently. This should be a good contest.

SRH are 51/4 after 8 overs.

WICKET! HARSHIT RANA STRIKES!

Fourth wicket falls for Sunrisers Hyderabad and they don’t even have reached the 50-run mark! This time it is Harshit Rana who produced the goods, getting the outside edge of Nitish Reddy’s bat with a sublime delivery.

Cyclone Remal is expected to hit Kolkata at midnight, but for now, celebrations might have started.

SRH are 47/4 after 7 overs.

Assigned to bowl a third consecutive over, Vaibhav Arora was not as precise with his line and length this time. Some of the deliveries were slightly short and aptly punished, with Aiden Markram hitting two fours and Nitish Reddy hitting a six.

SRH are 40/3 after 6 overs.

WICKET AGAIN!

Sunrisers Hyderabad are at sixes and sevens in Chennai, as the third wicket falls in just the fifth over. Rahul Tripathi tries to free the shackles, but perhaps it was not the right thing to do against Mitchell Starc. Instead, he ended up sending the ball into the night sky, and when it came down, Ramandeep Singh was stationed at the right position for KKR.

SRH 24/3 after 5 overs.

Vaibhav Arora is generating a great deal of swing. Six runs came from the fourth over, three of which were wides down the leg side.

SRH 21/2 after 4 overs.

Finally, some respite for Hyderabad. The third over produced two boundaries, off Rahul Tripathi and Aiden Markram’s bat. The latter could have been dismissed though, for his boundary came off an edge which would have been taken had Shreyas Iyer deployed an additional slip.

SRH 15/2 after 3 overs.

HUGE WICKET! TRAVIS HEAD OUT ON A DUCK!

Calamity strikes for Sunrisers Hyderabad as Travis Head departs on a golden duck. Another excellent out-swinging delivery, this time from Vaibhav Arora, and Head edges it straight into the gloves of Rahmanullah Gurbaz.

The bowlers are getting some swing early on. Did Pat Cummins play it to KKR’s hands when he chose to bat first?

GONE! Mitchell Starc strikes!

An excellent delivery with just a hint of outswing, but that is enough to completely bamboozle an in-form Abhishek Sharma. The ball shapes outside to hit the off-stump, and Sunrisers lose a wicket in the first over.

KKR with an early advantage. The most expensive player in IPL’s history delivers on the most important match of the season. Critics, where art thou?

Oh! Interesting scenes first up. Unlike Qualifier 1, Abhishek Sharma will face the first ball for SRH, not Travis Head. Mitchell Starc with the ball in hand.

Sunrisers Hyderabad have made one change to the team that defeated Rajasthan Royals in Qualifier 2. Shahbaz Ahmed has replaced Abdul Samad, which gives Pat Cummins to option to use an extra bowler in either Washington Sundar or Mayank Markande in the second innings.

Kolkata Knight Riders are expectedly unchanged.

KKR Playing XI: Rahmanullah Gurbaz (wk), Sunil Narine, Venkatesh Iyer, Shreyas Iyer (c), Rinku Singh, Andre Russell, Ramandeep Singh, Mitchell Starc, Vaibhav Arora, Harshit Rana, Varun Chakaravarthy.

KKR Impact Subs: Anukul Roy, Manish Pandey, Nitish Rana, KS Bharat, Sherfaine Rutherford.

SRH Playing XI: Travis Head, Abhishek Sharma, Rahul Tripathi, Aiden Markram, Nitish Reddy, Heinrich Klaasen (wk), Shahbaz Ahmed, Pat Cummins (c), Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Jaydev Unadkat, T Natarajan.

SRH Impact Subs: Umran Malik, Glenn Phillips, Mayank Markande, Abdul Samad, Washington Sundar.

Toss update: Sunrisers Hyderabad have won the flip of the coin and they will be batting first.

Notably, Hyderabad are not the best chasing team, and with dew not likely to be a factor today, it could be a decent call.

“There was no dew the other night, doesn’t seem there will be today,” said Pat Cummins.

Shreyas, meanwhile, is happy to lose the toss, for he would have preferred bowling first in any case.

Unlike the Qualifier 2, which was played on the black clay pitch which offers purchase to the spinners, this match will be played on a red soil surface.

What does that mean?

There will be hardly anything on offer for the spinners in this match. Instead, the pacers will extract good bounce, and the batters will get full value for their shots. Expect a high-scoring affair today.

Now that we have selected the key players from both teams, let us shift our attention to the key player battles, for the result could be decided by the winners of the individual matchups.

Read about the key player battles.

Selecting key players from Sunrisers Hyderabad is a comparatively easier task, as they have had a few standout performers in this campaign. Should they fire again, the Orange Army could well lift their second trophy.

Read about the players to watch out for from SRH.

Kolkata’s undisputed dominance this season is owing to numerous contributions, with all of the twelve players who will feature today having justified their worth at some stage of the competition.

That being said, we have selected five players who are likely to play most crucial roles in their mission for a third title.

Read about the players to watch out for from KKR.

KKR vs SRH Live Score, IPL 2024 Final Match Today Latest Updates: In the Indian Premier League’s (IPL) last edition, Sunrisers Hyderabad and Kolkata Knight Riders were among the worse teams, finishing plum last and seventh respectively. Not many considered them as contenders for the 2024 title, but here they are, having arrived in Chennai after 73 matches, crossing paths in the all-important final.

Under the stewardship of Gautam Gambhir, who led KKR to their two titles in 2012 and 2014, the team has gone through a remarkable resurgence. Kolkata have ticked every single box this season, with the balance in their squad being second to none.

The first and the last of those victories were against the team they will face today – Sunrisers Hyderabad. Led by Pat Cummins, who has now formed a knack for winning trophies, having won the World Test Championship and ODI World Cup last year, Hyderabad have won nine of the 16 matches they have played so far.

In comparison, the 2016 champions might lack the balance and depth of the KKR squad, albeit their differential in this competition has been individual brilliances – often coming from the opening pair of Abhishek Sharma and Travis Head, and from T Natarajan with the ball.

Overall, an exciting 40 overs await!