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The first qualifier match of IPL 2024 was between two top teams of IPL points table i.e. Kolkata Knight Riders and Sunrisers Hyderabad. The match was organized at Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad. This stadium with 132,000 seats is the largest in the world. Sunrisers Hyderabad won the toss and decided to bat first.
Sunrisers Hyderabad Innings:
The two aggressive openers – Travis Head and Abhishek Sharma came to open for Sunrisers Hyderabad. The start of Sunrisers Hyderabad’s innings was not good at all. Australian player Travis Head was bowled out in the second ball of the first over, scoring 0 runs. He was dismissed by his fellow countryman Mitchell Starc. Sunrisers Hyderabad lost the second wicket in the second over. This time Abhishek Sharma got out. He was dismissed by Vaibhav Arora. After that, Rahul Tripathi started batting aggressively.
Sunrisers Hyderabad lost 2 more wickets in the fifth over. Mitchell Starc took two wickets in the last two balls of the fifth over. He dismissed Nitish Reddy on the fifth ball of the fifth over and Shahbaz Ahmed on the sixth ball. After that, another star player of Sunrisers Hyderabad Heinrich Klaasen came to bat. At the end of 6 overs of powerplay, Sunrisers Hyderabad scored 45 runs for 4 wickets.
After that, Rahul Tripathi and Heinrich Klaasen started building the innings. They took 19 runs off Sunil Narine’s second over in the ninth over. At the end of 10 overs, Sunrisers Hyderabad scored 92 runs for 4 wickets.
Rahul Tripathi and Heinrich Klaasen made a partnership of 62 runs off 36 balls. Varun Chakaravarthy broke this partnership in the last ball of the 11th over. He dismissed Heinrich Klaasen. Rinku Singh made no mistake to take the catch at deep mid-wicket. Heinrich Klaasen scored 32 runs off 21 balls. He hit 3 fours and 1 six. After that, Abdul Samad came to bat, he played well. Rahul Tripathi was run out in the second ball of the 14th over. Andre Russell fielded brilliantly at backward point and quickly threw the ball to Rahmanullah Gurbaz and Rahmanullah Gurbaz ran him out easily. Rahul Tripathi scored 55 runs off 35 balls and he hit 7 fours and 1 six.
Sunrisers Hyderabad lost another wicket again in the next ball. Sanvir Singh got out off Sunil Narine. Another wicket fell in the 15th over. Abdul Samad was dismissed by Harshit Rana. Shreyas Iyer took a cool catch near the boundary line at long-off. Abdul Samad scored 16 runs off 12 balls with 2 sixes. At the end of 15 overs, Sunrisers Hyderabad scored 125 runs for 8 wickets.
Sunrisers Hyderabad lost their ninth wicket in the 16th over, Bhuvneshwar Kumar was dismissed by Varun Chakaravarthy. Then Pat Cummins and Vijayakanth Viyaskanth put on a partnership of 33 runs for the last wicket. However, Pat Cummins contributed more to this partnership. Pat Cummins was dismissed by Andre Russell in the third ball of the last over. With this, Sunrisers Hyderabad’s innings was over. Pat Cummins scored 30 runs off 24 balls which included 2 fours and 2 sixes. Sunrisers Hyderabad scored 159 runs in 19.3 overs.
Among Kolkata Knight Riders’ bowlers, Mitchell Starc took 3 wickets, Varun Chakaravarthy took 2 wickets, and Vaibhav Arora, Harshit Rana, Sunil Narine, and Andre Russell took 1 wicket each.
Kolkata Knight Riders Innings:
Sunil Narine and Rahmanullah Gurbaz came to open for Kolkata Knight Riders. They were very aggressive from the start of the innings. They took 20 runs off Pat Cummins in the second over of the innings. After the first 3 overs, Kolkata Knight Riders scored 44 runs without losing any wickets. Rahmanullah Gurbaz was dismissed in the fourth over. He was dismissed by T Natarajan. Rahmanullah Gurbaz scored 23 runs off 14 balls. He hit 2 fours and 2 sixes. After that, Venkatesh Iyer came to bat. He played brilliantly in this match. After 6 overs of powerplay, Kolkata Knight Riders scored 63 runs for 1 wicket.
Sunil Narine was dismissed by Pat Cummins in the seventh over. Sunil Narine scored 21 runs off 16 balls with 4 fours. After that, captain Shreyas Iyer came to bat. At the other end, Venkatesh Iyer was playing in a very aggressive manner. Shreyas Iyer could have got out in the tenth over, but Heinrich Klaasen could not take his catch despite a great effort. At the end of 10 overs, Kolkata Knight Riders scored 107 runs for 2 wickets.
Venkatesh Iyer and Shreyas Iyer made a partnership of 97 runs off 44 balls. Sunrisers Hyderabad could not break this partnership. In only 13.4 overs Kolkata Knight Riders took the required runs to win and they won the match by 8 wickets. Venkatesh Iyer scored an unbeaten 51 off 28 balls. He hit 5 fours and 4 sixes. Shreyas Iyer scored 58 runs off 24 balls. He also hit 5 fours and 4 sixes.
For Sunrisers Hyderabad. Pat Cummins and T Natarajan took 1 wicket each.
The summary of the scorecard of this match is given below.
Scorecard Summary:
| Sunrisers Hyderabad Innings (159/10 in 19.3 overs) | Kolkata Knight Riders Bowling |
| Rahul Tripathi 55 (35) | Mitchell Starc 34/3 (4 overs) |
| Heinrich Klaasen 32 (21) | Varun Chakaravarthy 26/2 (4 overs) |
| Pat Cummins 30 (24) | Harshit Rana 27/1 (4 overs) |
| Kolkata Knight Riders Innings (164/2 in 13.4 overs) | Sunrisers Hyderabad Bowling |
| Shreyas Iyer 58* (24) | T Natarajan 22/1 (3 overs) |
| Venkatesh Iyer 51* (28) | Pat Cummins 38/1 (3 overs) |
| Rahmanullah Gurbaz 23 (14) |
Result:
Kolkata Knight Riders won the match by 8 wickets.
Player Of The Match:
Mitchell Starc was selected as the player of the match for his outstanding bowling in this match.
I have uploaded a review of this match on YouTube keeping in mind the Bengali audience and listeners. If you want, you can watch that video. The link is given below.