After a thundering start from Mitchell Starc, who picked up three wickets in the powerplay, including Travis Head’s dismissal for a duck, Sunrisers Hyderabad seemed to have revived with an aggressive Rahul Tripathi scoring his 12th IPL fifty. But all hopes shattered in the blink of an eye as SRH lost five wickets in a space of just 30 balls for 25 runs. And while there was agony in the SRH camp, the celebrations from KKR co-owner Shah Rukh Khan, his daughter Suhana and team mentor Gautam Gambhir were worth watching.
After weeks of criticism, IPL’s costliest buy, Mitchell Starc, finally lived up to the billing on Tuesday at the Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad. He picked up three quick wickets to leave Hyderabad wounded in battle after being put to bowl first. The Aussie dismissed Head for a duck in the second ball of the match before accounting for the in-form Nitish Reddy (9) and Shahbaz Ahmed (0).
Reduced to 39/3 inside the powerplay, SRH counterattacked with Tripathi (55 off 35) dictating the show. Tripathi soaked in the pressure well as boundaries kept flowing for SRH, but the No.3 batter lacked support from the other end, beyond a 62-run stand for the fifth wicket with Heinrich Klaasen.
However, with Klaasen’s dismissal in the 11th over, SRH collapsed yet again. It was followed by a horrendous run out of Tripathi, a dismissal for a golden duck for Impact Player Sanvir Singh while Abdul Samad and Bhuvneshwar Kumar departed successively.
Amid the collapse, Gambhir aggressively celebrated in the dugout with assistant coach Abhishek Nayar, while Suhana, his brother AbRam and Shah Rukh Khan couldn’t keep calm.
Sunrisers captain Pat Cummins, however, played a crucial knock of 30 off 24 while also putting on a vital 33-run stand for the last wicket with Vijayakanth Viyaskanth to take SRH beyond the 150-mark.
KKR finished top of the table in the IPL 2024 league stage with 20 points in 14 matches, while Sunrisers came second with 17 points.
