KKR and SRH have been able to qualify to IPL Playoffs 2024 at No.1 and No.2 spots despite mixed campaigns. Their batting units have come good early in the tournament to give them good NRR. Later, their respective bowling units have also come good. Hence, both of them have been able to play Qualifier 1 at Ahmedabad after forgettable campaigns in 2022 and 2023.
IPL 2024 has seen huge 250 scores from the batting units of both the teams. So, the anticipation for this match is to seen 250 or 260 level score being scored by both of them. Well, KKR bowling unit had different ideas and they restricted SRH right from powerplay breaking the backbone of the team.
SRH won the toss and elected to bat first. Mitchell Starc, who won the most expensive bid ever in IPL to be part of the team KKR, has delivered big time when required. His form has been forgettable but he took 3 wickets in the powerplay in his 3 overs. He dismissed Travis Head in the first over for a duck and in the powerplay final over he dismissed Nitish Kumar Reddy and Shahbaz Ahmed .
Rahul Tripathi(55) and Heinrich Klaasen(32) tried to salvage the situation with a 62 run partnership. But Varun Chakravarthy dismissed Klaasen and bad runout with Abdul Samad ended Tripathi innings. Pat Cummins whacked a few and scored 30 to give SRH 159 all-out in 20 overs after being 126/9 in 16 overs. So, KKR just need to score 160 runs to reach the Final. Let’s see if SRH can give a fight in this one-sided encounter.
