They say that big players step up on big occasions and Mitchell Starc found his vintage form the moment IPL 2024 moved to its business end. The Aussie was on song in the IPL 2024 final as well as he cleaned up an in-form Abhishek Sharma with a ripper in his very first over.
On a wicket that experienced rain a day before, Starc used the juice to his advantage to swing the ball from middle-and-leg stump and hit Sharma's off stick with a dream delivery.
Abhishek was in red-hot form and had smashed 484 runs in IPL 2024. The onus of giving the Sunrisers a solid start was on his shoulders but Starc had other plans.
His partner in crime, Travis Head is having a torrid time in the playoffs as he was sent back for a golden duck by Vaibhav Arora in the 2nd over of the game.
Shreyas Iyer trusted Starc and gave him his 3rd over in the powerplay itself and he got another wicket to dismiss Rahul Tripathi for 9.
Earlier, Sunrisers Hyderabad captain Pat Cummins won the toss and elected to bat first against Kolkata Knight Riders in the IPL final here on Sunday.
The Hyderabad side made one change from the last match, bringing in Shahbaz Ahmed in place of Abdul Samad, while KKR retained their eleven from Qualifier 1.
KKR have earlier won the title two times, while SRH are seeking their second IPL trophy.
The Teams: Sunrisers Hyderabad: Pat Cummins (c), Travis Head, Abhishek Sharma, Rahul Tripathi, Aiden Markram, Nitish Reddy, Heinrich Klaasen (w), Shahbaz Ahmed, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Jaydev Unadkat, T Natarajan.
Kolkata Knight Riders: Shreyas Iyer (c), Rahmanullah Gurbaz (w), Sunil Narine, Venkatesh Iyer, Rinku Singh, Andre Russell, Ramandeep Singh, Mitchell Starc, Vaibhav Arora, Harshit Rana, Varun Chakaravarthy.