Ind T20 League 2024

Final : KOL vs HYD

Preview

No one makes it to the Ind T20 League final without earning it. The T20 league, contested for well over two months of play-sleep-travel-repeat in stifling summer, challenges every facet of a franchise and individual. It sifts a team’s culture, bench strength and prowess to plan for various conditions and oppositions. It puts a player’s skill, fitness and versatility to the test. Luck, surely, may play a part every now and then, but it bears to balance out a taxing season. To be amongst the last two in a ten team competition is quite a commendable achievement in itself. 

To be in the Ind T20 League final is no joke. Hyderabad (HYD) finished at the bottom of the table in 2021, eighth in 2022, and last again last year. Kolkata (KOL) ended their season at seventh in the last two seasons. HYD shattered auction records to acquire the services of an overseas speedster unproven in the competition and named him their skipper. KOL in turn broke HYD’s record bid for a fast bowler who since 2015 hadn’t played in the league. Both moves, which left the teams with little to no slack to construct other moves, were met with extensive disbelief. And neither were deemed favourites to be competing in the final on May 26. 

They’ve gotten here by playing some aggressive brand of cricket. KOL and HYD have scored faster than any other team has ever in an Ind T20 League season. After four teams commenced with normal totals in the opening two matches of the season, KOL and HYD went hammer and tongs against each other at the Eden Gardens, and never stopped swinging. They forced others to level up and bring up their A game at all times. 

KOL lifted the coveted trophy first in 2012 and then in 2014. HYD clinched the title in 2016. After their struggles in recent years, these two sides have been at the leading edge of the batting revolution in Indian T20 League 2023, and it is fitting that one of them will be crowned champions on Sunday.    

Match Details

Match: KOL vs HYD, Final, Indian T20 League 2024

Date: Sunday, May 26, 2024

Time: 7:30 PM

Venue: MA Chidambaram Stadium, Chennai

Pitch and Weather Report

The pitch for this game has a reddish soil, which typically provides more bounce than the previous match's surface. This presents a dilemma for the captains at the toss - whether to bat first or bowl first. If there is no dew, the pitch may get increasingly slower as the game progresses, making chasing a target more challenging. However, if there is dew, the conditions would favour the team batting second.

The weather forecast for Chennai today calls for a maximum temperature of 37 degrees Celsius and a minimum of 31 degrees. Additionally, the Accuweather prediction indicates there will be thick cloud cover, though it remains to be seen whether any rain will develop during the course of the match.

So the captains will have to weigh the potential impact of the pitch characteristics and the weather conditions when deciding their strategy at the toss. The slower, bouncier nature of the red soil pitch could make batting first advantageous, but the presence or absence of dew could shift the balance.

KOL vs HYD Squads

KOL: Rahmanullah Gurbaz (wk), Shreyas Iyer (c), Sunil Narine, Venkatesh Iyer, 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, Chetan Sakariya, Angkrish Raghuvanshi, Sakib Hussain, Suyash Sharma, Allah Ghazanfar

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

KOL vs HYD Probable Playing XIs

KOL: Sunil Narine, Rahmanullah Gurbaz (wk), Venkatesh Iyer, Shreyas Iyer (c), Rinku Singh, Andre Russell, Ramandeep Singh, Mitchell Starc, Vaibhav Arora, Harshit Rana, Varun Chakravarthy

Impact substitute: Anukul Roy/Nitish Rana

HYD: Travis Head, Abhishek Sharma, Rahul Tripathi, Aiden Markram, Nitish Reddy, Heinrich Klaasen (wk), Abdul Samad, Pat Cummins (c), Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Jaydev Unadkat, T Natarajan

Impact substitute: Shahbaz Ahmed/Umran Malik

Match Prediction

We are backing KOL to win this match and secure their third Ind T20 League trophy. 

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