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Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) has won the IPL 2024 title. Kolkata defeated Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) by 8 wickets in the final held in Chennai on Sunday. Kolkata team has become IPL champion for the third time. Before this, the team had also won the title in 2012 and 2014. After losing the final to Chennai in 2021, the team could not even play the playoffs in 2022 and 2023.
In such a situation, the question arises that what did Kolkata do differently this time, due to which it became the champion. There are 9 important factors behind this. Know the winning formula of Kolkata…
1. Gambhir gave license to kill
Kolkata decided to make its former captain Gautam Gambhir a mentor for this season. It is said that team owner Shahrukh Khan had given a blank check in front of Gambhir and offered him mentorship for the next 10 years. Gambhir was earlier the mentor of Lucknow Super Giants. He joined Kolkata and transformed the team as soon as he arrived.
Gambhir gave his players license to kill. That means go on the ground and express yourself. Its example is Sunil Narine. Sunil Narine, who came at number 7-8, opened this season and despite failing on some occasions, he kept getting chances.
Gambhir’s formula- Don’t be afraid to fail. Its result is now in front of everyone.
2. Standing out stark
2015 final and stormy batsman Brendon McCullum, who has scored 4 fifties in the Melbourne stadium, is at the crease. Ball in the hands of Mitchell Starc. Brandon was bowled by Mitchell on the very first ball. The start of the tournament was not good, but till the final, 22 wickets were in the bag.
Starc did the same in IPL 2024. Travis Head was bowled on the second ball of Qualifier-1. Took 3 wickets in power-play. After this, Abhishek Sharma was bowled on the 5th ball in the final. This was a dream swing delivery. Starc explained why Kolkata bought him by bidding Rs 24.75 crore.
3. Aggressive batting approach
Kolkata team was among the most aggressive batting teams this season. Kolkata scored more than 70 runs in the power-play 7 times in the season. The team also scored 200+ in 7 matches this year.
The strike rate of 6 batsmen of the team was 150+. In 2024, Kolkata batsmen played 45% attacking shots. The team played 41.08% attacking shots in 2022 and 41% attacking shots in 2023. This approach was new for Hyderabad, but not for Kolkata, because they were attacking in the last two seasons also.
In this approach, if they faced initial setbacks, then batsmen like Shreyas and Venkatesh kept working as shock observers in the middle overs. Shreyas Iyer has not been out while chasing the entire season.
4. Backup plan always ready
Whenever the attacking batting plan failed in the power-play, Kolkata still scored the required score and won the match. The first match of the season was against Hyderabad. Kolkata, batting first, lost 4 wickets at 51 runs. Despite this the team reached 208 runs.
Russell, Rinku and Ramandeep shone in the middle order. On May 3, against Mumbai, the team lost 5 wickets for 57 runs. Venkatesh (70 runs) and Manish Pandey (42 runs), who came at number 5 and 7, took the score to 169. Kolkata won the match.
In the entire tournament, Venkatesh scored 370 runs, Shreyas scored 351 runs, Russell scored 222 runs and Rinku Singh scored 168 runs, giving strength to the team from middle order to lower order.
5. Removed weakness against short pitch bowling
In 2022-23, Kolkata’s batsmen were collapsing against short-pitched bowling. In 2022-23, Kolkata’s batsmen were scoring runs on these balls at a run rate of 7.67 and the team’s average score was 17.47. The team worked on this in pre-season. In 2024, Kolkata is at third place in terms of scoring more runs against the short ball.
This year, the team’s run rate against these balls has been around 10 and the team average has improved to 29. This season, Salt batted at a strike rate of 190 against short pitches and short off good length balls. Ramandeep’s strike rate was 240. Narine’s strike rate was 172 and Venkatesh Iyer’s was 163. Many of the team’s matches were played on bouncy pitches, but the batsmen were prepared first.
6. Opening change became a game changer
Sunil Narine was brought in to open. Phil Salt and Rahmanullah Gurbaz supported. Sunil Narine scored 488 runs at a strike rate of 181. Scored 3 fifties and also scored his first T-20 century. Salt was not bought in the IPL auction. He came as a replacement for Jason Roy and scored 435 runs at a strike rate of 182.
Salt and Narine opened together and scored 559 runs.
7. Depth and flexibility in batting
- Kolkata changed batsmen at number 3 thrice. Venkatesh and Angkrish Raghuvanshi batted mostly in this position. Shreyas landed at this number 9 times in 14 innings. He was never out while chasing.
- There was never any question about number 5, because Venkatesh, Shreyas and Rinku Singh occupied this position 3 times each.
- Andre Russell and Rinku batted at the sixth position. Ramandeep batted 7 times at the 7th position, Rinku and Russell batted 5 times each.
- Kolkata’s strategy was left-right combination. Due to flexibility in batting, Kolkata was successful in making this left-right combination most of the time.
- The effort was also that one batsman should play good pace and the other spin. Ramandeep, Russell, Salt, Narine, Venkatesh, Raghuvanshi and Rinku Singh scored 95 plus runs against the Pacers at a strike rate of over 150. Shreyas and Narine achieved similar figures in front of the spinners. Russell, Salt and Ramandeep battered the spinners at a strike rate of 140 plus.
8. Best combination in bowling
- The economy rate of Kolkata bowlers in IPL was 9.39. This team stood third in this matter. But it has to be kept in mind that Kolkata bowlers mostly bowled on those pitches which were most batting friendly throughout the season. Six bowlers of the team took 10-10 wickets this season.
- All the bowlers were given special responsibilities and they also fulfilled them. Mitchell Starc and Vaibhav Arora bowled swing. Starc took 5 wickets in Qualifier-1 and the final. Vaibhav Arora took 3 wickets. Starc took 17 wickets this season. At the same time, Arora managed to take 11 wickets.
- The job of Harshit Rana and Russell was to hit the deck, use pace variations and slower ones. This is what they did. Rana took 19 wickets this year and Russell took 18 wickets.
- Along with Russell and Rana, Varun Chakraborty and Sunil Narine played the role of spinners very well in the middle overs. Chakraborty took 21 wickets and Sunil Narine took 17 wickets.
9. 2 world class all-rounders from West Indies
The team has world class all-rounders. Both are from West Indies. Andre Russell and Sunil Narine. Russell took 3 wickets and Sunil Narine took one wicket in the final. Andre Russell scored 222 runs and scored one fifty. He has 18 wickets in his name in this IPL. Narine, who had scored 482 runs, took 17 wickets.
3 reasons for Hyderabad’s defeat in the final
- If top order fails then the team fails The top order of the team did not work. The team’s openers performed brilliantly throughout the season. Due to this, the middle and lower-order did not get a chance to play in the initial overs. As soon as the openers were out, the entire team kept losing wickets. The same happened in Qualifier-1 and the final also.
- Excessive dependency on foreign players The team showed more confidence in foreign players. Who could not work on the Chennai pitch. Indian players got less opportunities. Due to this they could not do well in the playoff stage.
- Where there are no batting friendly conditions there is a problem Due to lack of batting friendly pitch, players could not do power hitting. All the players of the team easily gave their wickets to the bowlers.
