Kolkata Knight Riders’ Mitchell Starc celebrates the wicket of Sunrisers Hyderabad’s Abhishek Sharma during the final of IPL 2024 on May 26, 2024.
| Photo Credit: DEEPAK KR

A slow start in the Indian Premier League put Mitchell Starc’s record price tag under the microscope but the Australian all-formats hero underlined his worth as he lifted Kolkata Knight Riders to a third title.

Starc, the costliest cricketer in the history of the league, was named Player of the Match after taking 2-14 against Sunrisers Hyderabad, including bowling opener Abhishek Sharma with an unplayable delivery that pundits judged the tournament’s best.

The performance followed on from his brilliant semi-final when he took three wickets and bowled Australia team mate Travis Head with the second ball.

Starc started the tournament as one of its least economical bowlers, generating headlines across the world that compared his $2.98 million price tag with his paucity of wickets.

It also led to a few light-hearted barbs from team mates.

None will be laughing at him now.

“There have been plenty of jokes. A lot has been made of the money,” said the rangy left-armer.

“I am older and more experienced now, so that has helped with managing the expectations and leading the attack.

“It’s been a lot of fun, it’s been great to learn and see how these guys go about it but full credit to the whole players and staff, it’s made my life pretty easy.”

Starc’s stunning return to form in the IPL burnishes his record in big matches and comes days before the T20 World Cup starts in the United States and the Caribbean.

The 34-year-old took three wickets in the final of last year’s 50-over World Cup against hosts India and will likely be important for Australia’s hopes of becoming the first nation to hold cricket’s three global trophies in tests, ODIs and T20.

Kolkata’s eye-watering bid for Starc during the IPL auctions stunned the cricket world late last year but it now appears to have been a master stroke.

They may have to fork out more to retain his services in 2025.

Hyderabad captain Pat Cummins will no doubt be happier playing with Starc for Australia than against him in the IPL.

“I thought they bowled fantastically,” Cummins said after Hyderabad were skittled for 113.

“Unfortunately, my old mate Starcy turned it on again.”

KKR’s skipper Shreyas Iyer being honoured during the presentation ceremony after the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2024 final cricket match between Kolkata Knight Riders and Sunrisers Hyderabad at MA Chidambaram Stadium, in Chennai.
| Photo Credit: PTI

After guiding Kolkata Knight Riders to their third IPL title on Sunday, captain Shreyas Iyer said his side “played like invincibles” the whole season.

The Knight Riders lorded over Sunrisers Hyderabad in the IPL final, winning the lopsided title clash by eight wickets here at the MA Chidambaram Stadium.

“Absolutely comprehensive (the win). We played like invincibles throughout the season. There’s so much to cherish right now. This is what we demanded from the team and every individual,” Shreyas said during the post-match presentation.

“They stood up to the right occasion and the feeling is hard to express. It is pleasing, the performance has been flawless throughout. I am running out of words right now,” he added.

After the IPL, Shreyas will have to wait for more game time as he is not part of India’s squad for the T20 World Cup.

The Mumbaikar hoped to keep in touch with the game.

“All we demanded from ourselves was to back each other whatever the situation is. Looking forward to play more competitive cricket,” he said.

The elegant right-hander reserved a special word of praise for Mitchell Starc, whose two wickets in the Power Play denied SRH early momentum.

“That’s when all the big players stand up, right! It was a high-pressure game and he’s been so good off the field. He’s never shown any complacency in his work ethics. He stepped up to the right occasion,” he noted.

The Mumbai man also heaped accolades on all-rounder Andre Russell, who produced a three-wicket burst in the final.

“He’s got that magic wand. He’s looking forward to pick wickets. All the guys stepped up at the right time and that’s made it easier. It has been a flawless season.”

“Everyone has a plan…until they get punched in the face,” Mike Tyson is supposed to have said, according to sporting folklore.

Sunrisers Hyderabad had a plan, until Kolkata Knight Riders punched it in the face to win its third Indian Premier League title with an eight-wicket victory at the M.A. Chidambaram Stadium in Chennai on May 26.

SRH won the toss and batted first, betting on its now-patented target-setting ability and the belief that there would be no dew to hamper its bowlers like in Qualifier 2 versus Rajasthan Royals. But so lethal was the KKR bowling pack led by Mitchell Starc that SRH’s best-laid plans fell hopelessly flat.

Pat Cummins’ men chose the worst day to make their lowest total of the season, a paltry 113. Shreyas & Co. batted with whirlwind intent, allowing SRH not even a sniff, to chase down the score with more than nine overs to spare. KKR’s first IPL triumph was also at Chepauk, way back in 2012, with the now mentor Gautam Gambhir helming the side.

Sunil Narine hit the first ball he faced, from Cummins into the stands at deep midwicket. He perished the very next delivery, but it made his team’s intentions clear. In the third over, Venkatesh Iyer smashed Bhuvneshwar Kumar for two humongous sixes down the ground.

The left-hander would continue in the same vein, carting T. Natarajan for three fours and a six in the sixth over. At the other end Rahmanullah Gurbaz played a steady hand (39, 32b, 5×4, 2×6) before Venkatesh (52, 26b, 4×4, 3×6), like he had in Qualifier 1, carried his side home.

Earlier, Starc proved yet again that he was a man for the big occasion. In the very first over, he ended Abhishek Sharma’s nervous five-ball stay with a peach of a delivery that pitched on middle-stump and rattled the top of off.

Vaibhav Arora, who swung the ball both ways, struck the second big blow, forcing Travis Head to edge behind. When the in-form Rahul Tripathi top-edged a flick to Ramandeep Singh in front of square to give Starc his second scalp, SRH was reeling at 21 for three.

Aiden Markram hung around for a bit (20, 23b, 3×4), hitting Arora for two fours and a six in the final over of the PowerPlay to take SRH to 40 for three. But the recovery proved a mirage, as wickets fell at regular intervals. Nitish Kumar Reddy was caught behind off an express delivery from Harshit Rana and Markram holed out at long-on off Andre Russell.

Shahbaz Ahmed, the hero against RR, tried a sweep but was caught at short fine-leg. With no option left, Abdul Samad was summoned as the Impact Player and he lasted all of four balls, edging Russell behind to Gurbaz.

Cummins, batting at No.9, was SRH’s top-scorer 24 (19b, 2×4, 1×6). To be sure, the Australian is no mug with the bat, but if he is the leading batter in a side comprising Abhishek, Head, Klaasen and Markram, it does paint a grim picture. And so it proved to be.

Scoreboard

Sunrisers Hyderabad: Abhishek Sharma b Starc 2 Travis Head c Gurbaz b Vaibhav Arora 0 Rahul Tripathi c Ramandeep Singh b Starc 9 Aiden Markram c Starc b Russell 20 Nitish Reddy c Gurbaz b Harshit Rana 13 Heinrich Klaasen b Harshit Rana 16 Shahbaz Ahmed c Narine b Chakaravarthy 8 Abdul Samad c Gurbaz b Russell 4 Pat Cummins c Starc b Russell 24 Jaydev Unadkat lbw b Narine 4 Bhuvneshwar Kumar not out 0 Extras: (b-5, lb-2, w-6) 13

Total: 113 all out in 18.3 overs

Fall of wickets: 1-2, 2-6, 3-21, 4-47, 5-62, 6-71, 7-77, 8-90, 9-113

Kolkata Knight Riders bowling: Mitchell Starc 3-0-14-2, Vaibhav Arora 3-0-24-1, Harshit Rana 4-1-24-2, Sunil Narine 4-0-16-1, Andre Russell 2.3-0-19-3, Varun Chakaravarthy 2-0-9-1.

Kolkata Knight Riders (Target: 114 runs from 20 overs) Rahmanullah Gurbaz lbw b Shahbaz Ahmed 39 Sunil Narine c Shahbaz Ahmed b Cummins 6 Venkatesh Iyer not out 52 Shreyas Iyer not out 6 Extras: (B-4 LB-2 W-5) 11

Total: (For 2 wickets in 10.3 overs) 114

Fall of wickets: 1-11, 2-102

Sunrisers Hyderabad bowling: Bhuvneshwar Kumar 2-0-25-0, Pat Cummins 2-0-18-1, T Natarajan 2-0-29-0, Shahbaz Ahmed 2.3-0-22-1, Jaydev Unadkat 1-0-9-0, Aiden Markram 1-0-5-0.

Sunrisers Hyderabad’s skipper Pat Cummins with the IPL 2024 trophy during a press conference on the eve of the Indian Premier League (IPL) final match, in Chennai, on May 25, 2024.
| Photo Credit: PTI

While the Indian Premier League is all about the big Indian names and international stars earning the big bucks, the route to a team’s success runs through its Indian domestic core.

These players, some still finding their feet in big-league cricket and some on the fringes of National team selection, can make a campaign. Opponents often try to target these so-called weak links, but many youngsters ace the challenge to play a crucial role in their teams’ run to the business end of the tournament.

So, it is not surprising that the two finalists, Kolkata Knight Riders and Sunrisers Hyderabad, have been blessed with some fine performances from their domestic cricketers.

While pacers Harshit Rana and Vaibhav Arora have been revelations for KKR, Abhishek Sharma and Nitish Kumar Reddy’s heroics with the bat have been crucial in SRH’s progress.

“It’s been huge. Some youngsters have come through and won us games on their own. Nitish and Abhishek are probably the two biggest examples of guys who are kind of away from the Indian setup but have been fantastic,” said SRH captain Pat Cummins. “I feel like that’s been the story of our team. A lot of guys are taking the game on, putting themselves out there, and having breakout seasons,” added the Australian.

KKR skipper Shreyas Iyer, too, spoke about how the domestic players have been proactive and have played with freedom.

“When these guys come in, the youngsters, especially, are fearless in their approach, and their attitude is headstrong. A lot of them are versatile and enterprising in their approach and proactive,” said Shreyas.

“They want to go out there and perform. So, it’s just that when you give them that sort of freedom and back them during tough times, they deliver the best. And when these guys step up at the right time, they see that they win matches for you,” he explained.

Last December, when Mitchell Starc and Pat Cummins went for over ₹45 crore collectively at the auction, it looked like the Indian Premier League market had gone berserk.

Recency bias was the oft-cited explanation, for the two speedsters had played an instrumental role in Australia’s 50-over World Cup win just a month earlier. It didn’t matter that Starc had last played in the IPL in 2015 and Cummins a grand total of 12 IPL matches since 2020.

Kolkata Knight Riders paid a whopping ₹24.75 crores for Starc and Sunrisers Hyderabad splurged ₹20.50 crores on Cummins. Two bonafide Test greats, with enviable ODI records, had laughed their way to the bank in the bespoke world of T20 cricket.

More than five months after that frenzied afternoon in Dubai, Starc and Cummins will line up for the IPL final at the M.A. Chidambaram Stadium on May 26, having proved their penny’s worth and every critic wrong. Starc has scalped 15 wickets in KKR’s commanding run to the summit clash while Cummins, with his midas captaincy touch, has had his best-ever IPL with 17 wickets.

It helps that both are part of robust T20 outfits. KKR, astutely led by Shreyas Iyer, last lost a match exactly a month ago and reserved its best for Qualifier 1 where it walloped SRH by eight wickets. Sunrisers, despite being not so clinical, has redefined T20 batting this season, with Travis Head — another World Cup winner from Australia — and Abhishek Sharma pummelling many attacks into submission.

So wholesome an outfit has KKR been that even the loss of the in-form opener Phil Salt hasn’t seemingly affected the balance as Afghan Rahmanullah Gurbaz shone in Qualifier 1 in his first visit to the crease. Sunil Narine, Venkatesh Iyer and Andre Russell have come to the party when required; only Rinku Singh has remained largely subdued.

For SRH, Rahul Tripathi has thrived in three straight games and, along with Heinrich Klaasen, has bolstered the middle-order. Particularly impressive was the way R. Ashwin and Yuzvendra Chahal were handled in Qualifier 2. This should bode well for the team ahead of another spin test against Varun Chakravarthy and Narine.

New heroes

The biggest gain for SRH from Friday’s shootout was the unearthing of new heroes, with the unheralded spin bowlers in Shahbaz Ahmed and Abhishek coming up with match-winning performances on a dry, deteriorating pitch. Will lightning strike twice at Chepauk?

Heavens did open on match-eve, forcing KKR to call off its practice session after a few minutes. Sun didn’t beat down on Saturday as it usually does in May in these parts, but the weather remained warm and humid. As to what effect this has on the late-evening dew on matchday remains to be seen, for the absence of it in Qualifier 2 perplexed many.

However, amidst this mystery, what is certain is the fact that one of Starc and Cummins will leave the Indian shores with another colourful feather in an already ornate cap. A World Test champion, an ODI World Cup winner, a T20 World titlist will also be an IPL top dog.

Teams

Sunrisers Hyderabad: Abhishek Sharma, Travis Head, Heinrich Klaasen (wk), Aiden Markram, Abdul Samad, Nitish Reddy, Shahbaz Ahmed, Pat Cummins (c), Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Jaydev Unadkat, T Natarajan, Mayank Markande, Umran Malik, Anmolpreet Singh, Glenn Phillips (wk), Rahul Tripathi, Washington Sundar, Upendra Yadav (wk), Jhathavedh Subramanyan, Sanvir Singh, Vijayakanth Viyaskanth, Fazalhaq Farooqi, Marco Jansen, Akash Maharaj Singh, Mayank Agarwal.

Kolkata Knight Riders: Shreyas Iyer (c), KS Bharat, Rahmanullah Gurbaz, Rinku Singh, Angkrish Raghuvanshi, Sherfane Rutherford, Manish Pandey, Andre Russell, Nitish Rana, Venkatesh Iyer, Anukul Roy, Ramandeep Singh, Varun Chakravarthy, Sunil Narine, Vaibhav Arora, Chetan Sakariya, Harshit Rana, Suyash Sharma, Mitchell Starc, Dushmantha Chameera, Sakib Hussain and Mujeeb Ur Rahman.

Match starts at 7.30 PM.