Shreyas Iyer and Pat Cummins. (Source -IPL/BCCI)
For the 11th time in IPL history, the top two teams of the league stage will be playing the final. Kolkata Knight Riders defeated Sunrisers Hyderabad by eight wickets to qualify for the summit clash while the Pat Cummins-led side defeated Rajasthan Royals by 36 runs in Qualifier 2 to make it to the final.
Interestingly, both cities – Kolkata and Hyderabad – have two titles each. Under the leadership of Gautam Gambhir, the Knight Riders won the championship in 2012 and 2014. He left the franchise in 2017 and since then, KKR have made it to the final once, in which, they suffered a defeat at the hands of Chennai Super Kings. Gambhir reunited with KKR ahead of IPL 2024 and in his first year as KKR mentor, the team qualified for the final.
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They defeated Hyderabad once in the league stage and again in the Qualifier 1 and will be confident ahead of the final but it won’t be an easy task. SRH have been one of the most dominant teams in the 17th edition of the IPL and have a fantastic bowling line-up that can challenge KKR batters. When it comes to batting, Travis Head, Abhishek Sharma, Rahul Tripathi and Heinrich Klaasen will be key while the majority of the KKR players are in good form and an exciting game is awaited at MA Chidambaram Stadium on May 26.
What if the final between KKR vs SRH is washed out?
There’s a storm brewing in the Bay of Bengal that will affect the Eastern Ghats but it’s unlikely to bother the game in Chennai. The temperature will be around 32 degrees and there will be 100% cloud cover during the match. Wind will gust around 21 kmph. Now, if the storm changes its direction and hits Chennai, the match will be severely affected.
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The umpires will wait till 11:30 PM for the game to start but in case the conditions don’t allow them, the game will move to reserve day, that is, May 27. The final of IPL 2023 saw something similar as it was moved to reserve day in which CSK defeated Gujarat Titans at Narendra Modi Stadium.
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