And then there were two: Kolkata Knight Riders aim for third title but serial winner Cummins out to ambush them

PTI

Chennai, May 25

Gautam Gambhir couldn’t have envisaged a battle of wits with a more different kind of adversary than the smiling yet ruthless Pat Cummins as Kolkata Knight Riders face a spirited Sunrisers Hyderabad in the IPL final here on Sunday.

A decade ago, no one would have placed a bet on Cummins being a captain and winning the ODI World Cup, World Test Championship and Ashes in a space of six months, and now, leading SRH to their maiden IPL title would be the icing on the cake.

“A very practical guy, very humble, very empathetic to his fellow teammates and coaching staff. He is into statistics and gets the information he needs against a particular opposition in certain conditions,” SRH’s assistant coach Simon Helmot described the skipper in a nutshell after the team’s win against Rajasthan Royals in the second Qualifier.

“He doesn’t waste time in (team) meetings. Our team meeting today was 35 seconds. But, a lot of information has already been spoken about,” he said.

Pitch and conditions

The pitch for the final is a red-soil strip and could be more batting friendly, unlike the black-soil surface on which RR were spun out by SRH in Qualifier 2. As for the weather, there is no official forecast of rain tomorrow but it is expected to remain cloudy with low humidity.

The two teams met in the Qualifier 1 in which KKR outwitted SRH with clever bowling plans on a massive Motera ground and in Chennai, Shreyas Iyer’s men will again start as favourites.

The last time KKR played an IPL final in Chennai, it was against Chennai Super Kings in 2012 in one of the most epic contests, which established Gambhir’s credentials as an astute leader of men. A trophy will only burnish his credentials to succeed Rahul Dravid as India’s coach.

If one looks at man-to-man comparison, KKR tick more boxes in terms of overall match-winners with Sunil Narine, Andre Russell, Rinku Singh, and the two Iyers — Shreyas and Venkatesh — the two Ranas — Nitish and Harshit — and spinner Varun Chakravarthy in their ranks.

However, SRH’s uncapped domestic stars like Abhishek Sharma, Nitish Kumar Reddy have done really well along with out-of-favour India internationals such as Bhuvneshwar Kumar, T Natarajan and Jaydev Unadkat. “We have quite an experienced bowling line-up, including (Jaydev) Unadkat and Bhuvi (Bhuvneshwar Kumar). Also, so many youngsters have come through and have won us games by themselves, like Nitish (Reddy) and Abhishek (Sharma),” Cummins said.

SRH’s 36-run win over RR on a difficult track will certainly boost their confidence but they also must realise that the Chepauk wicket will be tailor-made for Varun (20 wickets) and Narine (16 wickets), who have been in stellar form throughout the season.

SRH’s spin department might be short on confidence but not in terms of courage, as Abhishek and Shahbaz Ahmed showed during their haul of 5 for 37 in 8 overs, which changed the course of the second qualifier.

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