KKR vs SRH Qualifier 1: It’s time for the most interesting phase of the 2024 Tata Indian Premier League – The Playoffs and the playoffs phase will be kicking off from today as the top two teams of the points table – Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) and Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) will take on each other in Qualifier one at Ahmedabad’s Narendra Modi Stadium and both the teams will be looking to book their tickets for the final of IPL 2024.
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The Kolkata Knight Riders, led by Shreyas Iyer have been the most consistent team of the league phase and their points tally in the overall standings clearly shows that. Finishing at the top of the table with 20 points, the Kolkata-based team had a three-point advantage over the second-ranked SRH with 17 points.
KKR’s Sunil Narine is having the best IPL season of his career and he has played the role of both batting and bowling to perfection while the middle-order batters and the lower-order batters have contributed immensely with the bat as they have capitalized on the start provided by the opening duo of Narine and Phil Salt and ended the innings on a positive note.
In terms of the bowling unit, the Knight Riders are one of the best teams. Three of their bowlers – Varun Chakaravarthy, Harshit Rana and Sunil Narine are part of the top 15 highest wicket-takers of IPL 2024 and this just goes to show how lethal their bowling unit has been this year.
The two concerns for the two-time IPL winners ahead of the playoffs will be the departure of opener and wicketkeeper-batsman Phil Salt and the poor form of speedster Mitchell Starc. While Rahmanullah Gurbaz will be filling the void of Phil Salt at the top of the order, Starc doesn’t have any proper replacement and considering the high amount of money KKR spent on him, he will have to pull his socks up and give his best in the playoffs phase and help Kolkata lift their third IPL trophy.
If the Knight Riders have a solid bowling unit, then the Sunrisers Hyderabad have the best batting unit of IPL 2024. In their final league game against the Punjab Kings, the Pat Cummins-led team chased down the target of 215 runs pretty easily. Abhishek Sharma single-handedly turned the game in the favor of his team with an outstanding knock of 66 runs in just 28 deliveries and the KKR bowlers need to bowl intelligently against the batting unit of SRH if they want to have the upper hand. At Stadiums which have a completely flat wicket, Hyderabad’s opening duo of Abhishek Sharma and Travis Head have the potential of killing the game off in the powerplay itself and they have done it on more than one occasion this year.
The Hyderabad-based team’s bowling has not been at its usual best but they have bowled well in the last few matches. T Natarajan has been Hyderabad’s best bowler this year and he has received an ample amount of support from the duo of Bhuvneshwar Kumar and Captain Pat Cummins.
Ahead of the KKR vs SRH Qualifier one game, let’s take a look at three key player battles:
Harshit Rana vs Heinrich Klassen
In their initial league stage encounter against KKR, the Sunrisers Hyderabad needed seven runs in five deliveries and Hyderabad was cruising to an easy victory thanks to the superb inning of Heinrich Klassen. However, Kolkata Knight Riders fast bowler Harshit Rana had some other ideas.
The young pacer dismissed Klaasen and gave away just two runs in his five deliveries which turned out to be the turning point and Harshit’s final over heroics allowed the Shreyas Iyer-led team to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat against SRH.
Harshit and Klaasen will once again be up against each other in Qualifier One and Rana will be high on confidence after his heroics in their previous meeting the young seamer will be looking to stop the SRH wicketkeeper batter again while the 32-year-old South African will be seeking revenge.
Pat Cummins vs Sunil Narine
The ability of Pat Cummins to bowl accurate bouncers might be Sunrisers Hyderabad’s best possible bet against Sunil Narine who is having an excellent IPL season with the bat as an opener.
Narine, who got run out for four runs in the previous meeting of the two sides earlier this season will be looking to toy with the SRH bowling unit.
If Bhuvneshwar Kumar is unable to dismiss Narine in the initial overs of the first qualifier, then Cummins will have to bring himself into the attack to keep the dangerous Narine quiet. A really interesting battle between the two players awaits as the top two battle it out against each other to secure their spot in the final.
Varun Chakaravarthy vs Travis Head
Travis Head has been the best batter for the Sunrisers Hyderabad in the current edition of IPL while Varun Chakaravarthy has been KKR’s most successful bowler this year.
Head is known to have a weakness against spinners and KKR skipper Shreyas Iyer won’t waste a lot of time to bring on Chakaravarthy against Head.
How well Head picks the mystery spin of Varun Chakaravarthy will be a thing to watch and this battle will potentially decide which team gets a chance to book their ticket for the IPL 2024 final.
