Mitchell Starc led an inspired bowling performance as Kolkata Knight Riders bowled out Sunrisers Hyderabad for just 113 in their bid for a third Indian Premier League title in the final on Sunday.
Australian left-arm quick Starc returned figures of 2-14. Fellow quicks Andre Russell and Harshit Rana shared five wickets between them to dismiss the opposition in 18.3 overs at Chennai’s M.A. Chidambaram Stadium.
It was the lowest total in an IPL final after Chennai Super Kings’ previous low of 125-9 in their loss to Mumbai Indians in 2013.
Skipper Pat Cummins won the toss and elected to bat first and go with Hyderabad’s strength of scoring big after they racked up IPL record totals of 277 and 287 in this edition.
But Kolkata had other ideas and Starc struck in his first over as he bowled in-form Indian batsman Abhishek Sharma, for two, on a delivery that pitched in the middle and caught the top of off stump.
Starc has justified his top billing in the world’s most lucrative T20 tournament after he went to Kolkata for a record $2.98 million in the December auction.
Hyderabad took Cummins for $2.5 million in the same auction and made him captain after he led Australia to two titles including the World Test Championship and the ODI World Cup last year.
Travis Head followed his fellow left-hand opener Abhishek to the dug out, caught behind for his second duck in three matches off fast bowler Vaibhav Arora.
Starc struck again and the opposition top-order was in disarray at 47-4 in seven overs.
Russell took down Aiden Markram for 20 and wickets kept tumbling as another South African Heinrich Klaasen fell for 16.
Cummins, who was dropped on 10 by Starc, took the team past 100 before falling for 24 off Russell, who ended with figures of 3-19.
Two-time winners Kolkata, led by Shreyas Iyer, have been the most dominant among the 10 teams after they topped the league phase and thrashed Hyderabad in the first qualifier with Starc returning figures of 3-34 to make their fourth final.
Former India batsman Gautam Gambhir led Kolkata to title victories in 2012 and 2014, and is now the team mentor.
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