Image Credit- BCCI
Similar to the 2015 World Cup final, Kolkata Knight Riders produced the most lopsided IPL final to win their third championship, with Mitchell Starc leading the rout of the second-best team of the competition.
After becoming the most expensive player in IPL history, Starc didn’t quite get off to the perfect start to the competition, but he showed up for the playoffs. After Starc bowled Head with the second ball in the Qualifier 1, Abhishek Sharma was taking the first strike when the first ball of the match swung away to defeat him. Starc had established enough of a rhythm by the conclusion of the over to pitch the ball on leg and hit the top of off. At Starc’s speed, the delivery was unplayable.
The final ball of the second over was when Head came on strike. Arora began on a fair length outside leg, then swung and seamed the ball to finish just outside the top of off. Head pressed against it, swerved, and became trapped behind.
Arora used a variety of paced short balls to vary up his inswing, but Starc continued to threaten both edges with the scrambling seam ball. Rahul Tripathi attempted to push back but lost his balance on a top edge after one outside edge went wide of the slip.
In the powerplay, KKR only used two bowlers, but in the last over, Arora went for 17, bringing SRH up to 40 for 3. With an Impact Player up their sleeve, it appeared as though SRH could recover the game from that position.
It was not meant to be. Harshit Rana bowled three consecutive slower balls in his opening over before controlling seam movement against the angle and bowling the hard length at 146 mph. All that nitish Reddy could do was chase after it, and he only succeeded in getting an edge through to the keeper.
Actually, SRH’s last remaining chance was now Aiden Markram and Heinrich Klaasen. After three overs of cautious batting together, Markram was caught long-on when attempting to take Andre Russell on. Soon after, Varun Chakravarthy used a top edge on a sweep from way outside off to remove Shahbaz Ahmed from the game.
Russell took his 18th IPL wicket in the following over from Impact Player Abdul Samad, the most wickets he has ever taken in a single edition. Returning to the scene, Rana got Klaasen moving on to a slower ball. After taking Pat Cummins’ wicket in the 19th over to complete the innings, Russell went on to add a 19th to his total.
Though they lost Sunil Narine for 6 off 2 at the other end, KKR kept dominating Bhuvneshwar Kumar by charging at him. After Venkatesh blasted two consecutive sixes off Bhuvneshwar in a 20-run third over, KKR amassed the highest powerplay total in an IPL final (72) when he and Rahmanullah Gurbaz took another 20 off T Natarajan in the sixth over.
After the powerplay, Gurbaz reached new heights, but he was denied a review due to a technical malfunction when he was declared leg before wicket for 39. After a difficult year in which he lost his spot in and retainer with the team, that only made it possible for captain Shreyas Iyer to be in the midst for the victory moment.