24 May,2024 07:31 AM IST | Mumbai | Rohan Koli
RR skipper Sanju Samson and RCB captain Faf du Plessis during the Eliminator in Ahmedabad on Wednesday. Pic/IPL; BCCI; KKR captain Shreyas Iyer. Pic/IPL; BCCI; RCB’s Glenn Maxwell is clean bowled by Punjab Kings’s Harpreet Brar at Bangalore in March. Pic/AFP; KKR pacer Mitchell Starc (right) with teammates after dismissing SRH’s Travis Head. Pic/PTI
IPL has always been unpredictable, with no teams go in as favourites against each other. This year was no different, as for the first time none of the previous season's Playoff teams have made it to this year's Top 4. Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR), Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH), Rajasthan Royals (RR), Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB), who failed to make it to IPL-16 Playoffs, finished the league stage in first, second, third and fourth position respectively, while last year's Qualifiers, Chennai Super Kings (CSK), Lucknow Super Giants (LSG), Gujarat Titans (GT) and Mumbai Indians (MI) ended this season fifth, seventh, eighth and 10th respectively.
RCB recorded one of the greatest comebacks in IPL after being written off from ending in the last four in the first half of the season. But, to everyone's surprise, the Faf du Plessis-led side won six consecutive matches in the second half of the tournament to end among the Top 4 in the league stage. In this process, they also became the first side to register six successive wins after six back-to-back losses in the same season. Deccan Chargers (2010), Kings XI Punjab (2020) and SRH (2022) had five consecutive wins after defeats in a season.
Shreyas Iyer-led KKR beat SRH in Qualifier 1 to enter the IPL-17 final. The Kolkata side's fourth IPL final also ensured Iyer wrote his name in the history books after he became the first player to lead two different teams in the IPL final. The 29-year-old Mumbai man had earlier guided Delhi Capitals to their first-ever IPL final in 2020. They, however, lost to MI by five wickets in Dubai.
RCB's Glenn Maxwell continued his lean patch this season by getting dismissed on a duck in the all-important Eliminator against RR at Ahmedabad. A first ball nought off spinner R Ashwin also marked the Australian's fourth duck this season, the joint second-most in IPL. The first ball duck against RR is also Maxwell's 18th nought in IPL, the joint-most by teammate Dinesh Karthik. With just 52 runs in 10 matches, the right-hand batter had the worst IPL season with the bat, averaging just 5.77, the second-lowest overall in 10 games.
KKR speedster Mitchell Starc clean bowled SRH opener and in-form batter Travis Head for a two-ball duck in Qualifier 1. The left-arm pacer has dismissed Head five times in seven matches, including four ducks and four clean bowled in five encounters across all formats. Their rivalry dates back to 2015 when the left-handed batter was dismissed thrice in the same year, twice in Australia's One-Day Cup and once in Sheffield Shield, while he was clean bowled for a first-ball duck in the Sheffield Shield in 2017.
