Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) are eagerly awaiting to take the field against Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) as the summit clash of the final of the 17th edition of the Indian Premier League (IPL) draws closer. Notably, this will be the third meeting between the two teams this season.
Kolkata Knight Riders kicked off their campaign with a four-run win over the Pat Cummins-led Sunrisers Hyderabad at the Eden Gardens in Kolkata on March 23. Both teams then met in Qualifier 1 at the Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad on May 21 as Kolkata finished the league stage at the top of the points table and Sunrisers finished second.
Qualifier 1 witnessed a clinical performance by Shreyas Iyer and his unit. KKR decimated Sunrisers by eight wickets to storm into the finals. Crestfallen after the loss, Sunrisers regathered themselves and registered a convincing 36-run victory over Rajasthan Royals in Qualifier 2 to book the remaining berth in the summit clash.
KKR's record in IPL Finals
The final at the MA Chidambaram Stadium in Chennai will be KKR's fourth final appearance in the history of the tournament and their second at the venue.KKR played their first-ever IPL final at the MA Chidambaram Stadium against Chennai Super Kings (CSK) in 2012. The Gautam Gambhir-led side claimed their maiden IPL title with a five-wicket win.
KKR played their second IPL final in the 2014 edition against Kings XI Punjab (now Punjab Kings) and Gambhir led them to their second-title finish. Gambhir was not around when KKR played their third IPL final in 2021. Led by Eoin Morgan, KKR lost to Chennai in the summit clash by 27 runs in Dubai.
Sunrisers Hyderabad's squad:
Travis Head, Abhishek Sharma, Rahul Tripathi, Nitish Reddy, Aiden Markram, Heinrich Klaasen (wk), Abdul Samad, Pat Cummins (c), Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Jaydev Unadkat, T Natarajan, Umran Malik, Sanvir Singh, Glenn Phillips, Mayank Markande, Shahbaz Ahmed, Vijayakanth Viyaskanth, Washington Sundar, Mayank Agarwal, Anmolpreet Singh, Upendra Yadav, Jhatavedh Subramanyan, Fazalhaq Farooqi, Marco Jansen, Akash Maharaj Singh
Kolkata Knight Riders' squad:
Rahmanullah Gurbaz (wk), Sunil Narine, Venkatesh Iyer, Shreyas Iyer (c), Rinku Singh, Andre Russell, Ramandeep Singh, Mitchell Starc, Vaibhav Arora, Harshit Rana, Varun Chakaravarthy, Anukul Roy, Manish Pandey, Nitish Rana, Srikar Bharat, Sherfane Rutherford, Dushmantha Chameera, Angkrish Raghuvanshi, Sakib Hussain, Suyash Sharma, Allah Ghazanfar, Chetan Sakariya
