IPL 2024 has got their first finalist as Kolkata Knight Riders have easily pulled off a win over Sunrisers Hyderabad in Qualifire 1 on Tuesday, 21 May at Narendra Modi Stadium, Ahmedabad. Shreyas Iyer with a giant six scores winning shot for KKR and successfully chases easy looking score of 159 runs with nearly 7 overs left to play.
Earlier, at the toss, Sunrisers Hyderabad opted to bat first, following their winning formula in this edition of IPL, the equation was clear, they were supposed or aimed to put a huge score on the board like they are used to in the group match earlier and then mke the opponent struggle while chasing that. But, KKR had turned the tables when they thrashed the attacking opening duo, Travis Head who got bowled out by his Australian team-mate, Starc while Abhishek Sharma, who got caught out by Russell in just second over of the match by Vaibhav Arora.
Kolkata managed to control the innings and let Sunrisers put only a decent fighting total on the unusual ground of Ahmedabad. Rahul Tripathi scored highest runs for Hyderabad (55 runs in 35 balls) while Klassen, Samad & Cummins showed some firecrackers by the end. While chasing down that target, Kolkata was pretty clear on their approach. Even in the absence of their regular opener P Salt, they managed to start in the same attacking way; all credits to Sunil Narine & Gurbaz.
Though KKR lost both the wickets by the end of 7th over, it seemed like SRH could somehow hold few strings in the match untill, Shreyas Iyer & Venkatesh Iyer teamed up to thrash Hyderabad bowling unit. Shreyas scored 58 runs off just 24 balls with the strike rate of 241 while Venkatesh Iyer scored 51 off 28 balls with 5 fours & 4 sixes.
Now both the teams, Kolkata Knight Riders & Sunrisers Hyderabad will fly to Chennai but Kolkata will have all their eyes on Finals while Hyderabad will have to play qualifire 2 with either Royal Challengers Bengaluru or Rajasthan Royals; that will get to know tomorrow!