The Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) locked horns with SunRisers Hyderabad (SRH) on Tuesday, May 21 to kick off the IPL 2024 playoffs. Despite being put to bowl first, the KKR bowlers did their work with tremendous effort to restrict the Pat Cummins-led side to 159 in 19.3 overs.
While the opening pair of Travis Head and Abhishek Sharma could not do much with the bat, Rahul Tripathi anchored the SRH inning to put up a competitive total on the board with Heinrich Klaasen (32) and Pat Cummins (30) playing crucial knocks too. But the Shreyas Iyer-led side had some different plans in pursuit of the 160-run target.
The new opening pair for KKR, Rahmanullah Gurbaz and Sunil Narine did give a start but failed to get past the 25-run mark respectively. From here, Venkatesh Iyer and Shreyas Iyer took the proceedings, scoring their respective half-centuries and helped the side win by eight-wicket margin. With this crucial win, Kolkata based franchise entered their fourth IPL final.
This moment brought back the old memories where Gautam Gambhir had led the side to two IPL titles. Fans took this moment and flooded social media, especially X with memes.
Check out how fans reacted to KKR’s win over SRH in Qualifier 1:
While KKR will await their opponent in the IPL 2024 final, the SunRisers Hyderabad will take on the winner of Royal Challengers Bengaluru versus Rajasthan Royals in the Qualifier 2 at the MA Chidambaram Stadium in Chennai.