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Kolkata Knight Riders stepped up and delivered the goods against Sunrisers Hyderabad in the Qualifier 1 match of IPL 2024. The Knight Riders lost the toss and had to field first at the Narendra Modi Stadium, but Mitchell Starc's triple strike in the powerplay gave them an early edge.
Starc dismissed Travis Head, Nitish Kumar Reddy, and Shahbaz Ahmed in quick succession to destroy Sunrisers Hyderabad's top-order. Vaibhav Arora sent in-form Abhishek Sharma back to the dressing room in the powerplay as well, as SRH were down to 39/4 after five overs.
Former KKR batter Rahul Tripathi then hit a half-century to bring SRH back into the contest. Heinrich Klaasen supported him with a 32-run knock. However, once Varun Chakravarthy broke that partnership, SRH lost the next five wickets for 58 runs.
Chakravarthy finished with impressive figures of 2/26, while Harshit Rana, Sunil Narine and Andre Russell bagged one wicket each. A KKR fan listed the wicket tallies of all bowlers in the team and labeled the Knight Riders bowling unit as the best one of IPL 2024.
"Varun - 20, Harshit - 17, Narine - 16, Russell - 16, Starc - 15, Vaibhav - 10, THE BEST BOWLING UNIT OF THIS TOURNAMENT!!!!!!" he tweeted.
Another fan pointed out how Mitchell Starc's performances have improved ever since his wife Alyssa Healy started attending the IPL games.
"Mitchell Starc has been really breathing fire ever since Alyssa Healy is attending KKR matches," the fan tweeted.
Sunrisers Hyderabad's openers stunned by Kolkata Knight Riders in Qualifier 1 of IPL 2024
Travis Head and Abhishek Sharma have been the most destructive pair of the IPL 2024 season. However, Mitchell Starc got rid of Head on the second ball of the innings, while Vaibhav Arora dismissed Sharma caught out in the second over. A fan pointed out that this was the first time both SRH openers got out for single digit scores this season.
Despite Head and Sharma's failure, SRH managed to set a 160-run target for their opponents. It will be interesting to see which team qualifies for the IPL 2024 final.
