Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) made it to their fourth-ever IPL final following a convincing eight-wicket win against Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) in the Qualifier 1 on Tuesday in Ahmedabad. They will lock horns with the Orange Army once again, who defeated the Rajasthan Royals (RR) in the Qualifier 2 in Chennai on Friday night.
Gautam Gambhir’s mentorship has surely worked wonders as KKR dominated the group stage to advance to their first final since 2021. Interestingly, the two-time champions had their victorious years in 2012 and 2014, under the captaincy of Gambhir. With their former captain’s homecoming, the high-spirited Kolkata-based franchise is dreaming of continuing the successful journey with the legendary cricketer.
KKR began their IPL 2024 campaign with a home game, at Eden Gardens on March 3, against SRH. Batting first, Phil Salt and Andre Russell’s half-centuries powered KKR to 208/7. The Caribbean all-rounder also snared a couple of wickets while Sunil Narine and Harshit Rana shared four wickets among each other as Kolkata secured a narrow 4-run win.
They went on to complete a hat-trick of victories, defeating the Royal Challengers Bengaluru by 3 wickets and thrashing Delhi Capitals by a huge margin of 106 runs. The match against DC saw Kolkata posting their highest total in IPL history – 272/7 – also the third highest in the history of the competition. Narine starred with the bat with a blistering 85 off 39. Vaibhav Arora and Varun Chakaravarthy then shared six wickets to bowl out DC for 166.
KKR’s three-match winning streak ended against Chennai Super Kings at Chepauk as the defending champions pocketed an easy seven-wicket win.
After three wins and a loss, Kolkata were back at Eden Gardens for the next five fixtures. The home leg began with an 8-wicket win against Lucknow Super Giants. The next fixture, against the Rajasthan Royals, turned out to be a run fest with openers of both teams smashing centuries However, the visitors excelled and won the game by 2 wickets.
KKR won and lost once each in their next two matches. They outsmarted RCB again, this time by 1 run, but lost the next one to Punjab Kings by 7 wickets. The visitors scripted history, setting the record for the highest successful chase – of 262.
KKR beat five-time MI twice this season. They set attainable targets of 170 and 158 for MI and in between these two performances, registered a massive 98-run win over LSG, reaching the top spot on the IPL points table. Narine’s 81 (39) helped his side post 235/6. Then three-wicket hauls from Harshit Rana and Chakaravarthy sealed their win as LSG were skittled for 137 in 16.1 overs.
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KKR’s next two matches against the Gujarat Titans and RR were abandoned due to rain. They became the first team to qualify for the playoffs with 20 points to their credit.
SRH ended the league stages at no. 2 and faced Kolkata in Qualifier 1 on May 21, but the match turned out to be a one-sided affair. The former two-time champions chased down 160 with 38 balls to spare. Starc took 3/34 to limit SRH before Shreyas Iyer and Venkatesh Iyer struck half-centuries to take KKR into the title clash.
With an impressive record of 10 wins, three defeats and two no results from 15 matches, KKR certainly starts the title clash as the favourites.
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