Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) captain Shreyas Iyer had a fun way to toss the coin at the MA Chidambaram Stadium, Chennai, for the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2024 clash against Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH). As Iyer was handed the coin, he tossed it in a bizarre fashion and twirled to leave SRH skipper Pat Cummins smiling.
However, the toss did not go KKR’s way. Cummins won the toss and opted to bat first in their third IPL final. The Australian all-rounder made just one change to his combination by bringing in Shahbaz Ahmed for Abdul Samad. Shahaz won the ‘Player of the match’ as their impact player in the Qualifier 2 against Rajasthan Royals (RR). Samad has struggled of late and registered a string of low scores. But Samad was one of the impact subs for SRH team.
“We will bat first. Looks like a good wicket, played on a different wicket the other night. There was no dew on the other night's game, we have a style which doesn't work always, but when it does, it's very damaging. I want to crack with the bat first. We have done well defending scores. Pretty much the same, Shahbaz comes in for Samad,” Cummins said after winning the toss.
However, Iyer did not make a single change to the playing XI.
“We would have bowled, we'll get a fair idea about how the pitch will play. It's a red soil and we played our last game on a similar surface. We need to stay with the present, stick to the basics and execute all our plans. Every individual is taking responsibility, this is a big game, we've plenty of people who're playing in a final for the first time, nervous, but this is also a good chance. We're going with the same team,” he said.
KKR Playing XI: Rahmanullah Gurbaz(w), Sunil Narine, Venkatesh Iyer, Shreyas Iyer(c), Rinku Singh, Andre Russell, Ramandeep Singh, Mitchell Starc, Vaibhav Arora, Harshit Rana, Varun Chakaravarthy
SRH Playing XI: Travis Head, Abhishek Sharma, Rahul Tripathi, Aiden Markram, Nitish Reddy, Heinrich Klaasen(w), Shahbaz Ahmed, Pat Cummins(c), Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Jaydev Unadkat, T Natarajan
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