By the end of Sunday evening, the home of yellow was bathing in a wave of purple. Gautam Gambhirwho had led KKR to their first IPL triumph 12 years ago at the same venue, was celebrating his return to a team he calls his “second home”.
Gambhir’s biggest punt of the season, Mitchell Starc for Rs 24 crore, proved to be worth every penny as the Aussie decimated Sunrisers Hyderabad for the lowest score of an IPL final. SRH were bowled out for 113 in the 19th over, 12 short of Chennai Super Kings’ 125 at the 2013 Eden Gardens final against Mumbai Indians.
As the Shah Rukh chartbusters started blaring across Chepauk, the KKR batters had an on-field party, running away with an eight-wicket win in 10.3 overs, to present ‘King Khan’ with his third IPL title. Venkatesh Iyer (52 not out off 26 balls) helped himself to some fireworks as KKR completed the most one-sided IPL final in its 17-year history.
But before all that, as Cyclone Remal made its landfall in Bangladesh, the weather down the east coast was gloomy through the day, Chennai being no exception.
There was a breeze on as well, making the conditions at Chepauk conducive for swing bowling. And when a bowler of the quality of Starc gets such conditions, there’s a chance that he can turn absolutely unplayable.
SRH left-hander Abhishek Sharma got a feel of that quality in the first over itself as his off-stump was knocked back by a beautiful outswinger. Starc (2-14) created fear in the minds of the SRH top order with the movement that he was generating at a furious pace and Travis Head knew he had to take chances at the other end.
Medium-pacer Vaibhav Arora was waiting for this chance and he, too, got the ball to move just a bit that found the edge of Head’s bat to send him back for his third duck in four games. The moment the dynamic opening duo was dismissed for virtually nothing, a sense of helplessness crept into the SRH ranks. Another in-form player, Rahul Tripathy was dismissed by Starc within the powerplay.
If SRH had to make a comeback, the middle-order of Aiden Markram, Nitish Reddy and Heinrich Klaasen had to rise to the occasion. But here too, the depth of the KKR attack came to the fore with medium-pacer Harshit Rana, wily old Sunil Narine and Russell taking charge.
While Harshit used his subtle variations beautifully with the occasional slower balls – one accounting for Klaasen – Narine was his usual stingy self. If that was not enough, old pro Andre Russell (3-19) was equally brilliant.
SRH batters completely lost the plot as ‘Main Hoon Don’ blared across the ground and became the signature tune of Chennai for Sunday night.
