Sunrisers Hyderabad captain Pat Cummins admitted they were outplayed by Kolkata Knight Riders in the IPL 2024 final at the MA Chidambaram Stadium, Chennai on Sunday. KKR bested the Orange Army by eight wickets and won with 57 balls to spare.
Cummins decided to bat first after winning the toss but SRH was skittled out for a paltry score of 113, the lowest total in an IPL final. Mitchell Starc got rid of in-form Abhishek Sharma with a ripper and then Vaibhav Arora got the big wicket of Travis Head, who was dismissed for a golden duck.
Starc then accounted for Rahul Tripathi as Ramandeep Singh took a good catch. The Australian returned with match-winning bowling figures of 2-14 whereas Harshit Rana bowled a fine spell of 2-24, removing dangerous Heinrich Klaasen with a slower ball.
Furthermore, Andre Russell was at his absolute best as he had figures of 3-19 as he dismissed Aiden Markram, Abdul Samad, and Pat Cummins. Sunil Narine and Varun Chakravarthy also bagged one wicket apiece as KKR came up with a collective bowling show.
On the other hand, KKR chased down the target in only 10.3 overs with Venkatesh Iyer scoring a fine knock of 52 runs off 26 balls.
Pat Cummins said after the loss while talking to the host broadcasters, “They bowled fantastically. Unfortunately, old mate Starcy turned it on again. Not enough tonight, totally outplayed. You hope you get a few boundaries away but they bowled fantastically well, didn’t really give us anything. Similar to last week in Ahmedabad where they bowled really well, so full credit. It was a bit of a tricky wicket. If we got 160, it would have felt we were in the game. Didn’t feel like a 200+ wicket. Well short, maybe a few extra runs would have given us a chance.”
Speaking on the team’s positives, Cummins highlighted that the way they batted throughout the season was pleasing to note. Travis Head and Abhishek Sharma gave blistering starts to the team and took the opposition bowlers to the cleaners.
Cummins concluded, “So many (positives), the style that the the guys played particularly with the bat. Takes a lot of skill to not only get 250 but also three times. It takes real, you are putting yourself out there a fair bit. I loved how brave the guys were. In high-pressure situations, they took the game on. It was a lot of fun, fans seemed to like it back in Hyderabad. Great season. It was fantastic, hadn’t worked with many of the guys before at all.”
SRH had finished IPL 2023 as the cellar dwellers of the tournament but bounced back strongly this season.
