Sunrisers Hyderabad captain Pat Cummins with teammates celebrates after winning the Indian Premier League (IPL) Qualifier 2 cricket match against Rajasthan Royals, at MA Chidambaram Stadium, in Chennai ((PTI Photo/R Senthilkumar)
HYDERABAD: Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) fashioned a 36 run-win against Rajasthan Royals on Friday to set up the IPL 2024 final with table toppers Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) at the Chepauk Stadium in Chennai on Sunday night.
Forecaster AccuWeather’s prediction is a partly cloudy evening with 66 per cent humidity and around 35 degrees Celsius temperature. This is a huge relief as last year’s final was rain-affected and entirely played on the reserve day.
As is tradition in Chennai, the pitch will assist pacers and spinners.
Both sides are evenly matched. An enthralling encounter awaits fans with rich cricketing talent on display.
KKR will walk into the clash as slight favourites. They won the most matches in the league phase among all teams.
Crucially, they have had more time to rest than SRH after winning Qualifier 1 on Tuesday. SRH whereas played their last game on Friday.
KKR has a very strong top order with Sunil Narine and Venkatesh Iyer leading the charge. Andre Russell, and Rinku Singh give the side firepower in the last few overs. Several-time World Cup champion Mitchell Starc has hit a purple patch with the new ball.
This will be KKR skipper Shreyas Iyers’s second final as an IPL team captain. KKR coach Gautam Gambhir’s name has also been floated in the media for the national men’s team’s coaching job.
SRH, led by Pat Cummins, is very well-balanced with five all-rounders in the side. The last playing XI that SRH fielded had batting till number eight and four pure bowlers with an astounding variety of five pace and four spin options.
Foreigner batters Travis Head, Heinrich Klaasen and their Australian skipper are the very best in world cricket.
Congratulations to the entire IPL ecosystem for another good season.
Predicted XI SRH:
Travis Head, Abhishek Sharma, Rahul Tripathi, Aiden Markram, Heinrich Klaasen (WK), Nitish Kumar Reddy, Abdul Samad, Shahbaz Ahmed, Pat Cummins (C), Jaydev Unadkat, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, T Natarajan.
Predicted XI KKR:
Rahmanullah Gurbaz (WK), Sunil Narine, Venkatesh Iyer, Shreyas Iyer (C), Rinku Singh, Andre Russell, Ramandeep Singh, Mitchell Starc, Vaibhav Arora, Harshit Rana, Varun Chakravarthy, Nitish Rana.
( Source : Deccan Chronicle )
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