Chennai Super Kings Dominate Kolkata Knight Riders to Win Fourth IPL Title In 2021
Chennai Super Kings secured their Fourth Title by dominating Kolkata Knight Riders in the IPL 2021 final, led by Faf du Plessis and their formidable bowling attack.
Before Shardul Thakur and company sliced through the middle of the Knight Riders, Uthappa and Moeen also contributed with the bat.
Kolkata Knight Riders 165 for 9 (Gill 51, Iyer 50, Thakur 3-38, Hazlewood 2-29) were defeated by Chennai Super Kings 192 for 3 (du Plessis 86, Moeen 37*, Narine 2-26) by a margin of 27 runs.
In the IPL 2021 final, Chennai Super Kings delivered on their pledge to erase the anomaly from the previous season. Led by MS Dhoni and his team, they ended the thrilling second half of the season for Kolkata Knight Riders and won their fourth IPL title.
Since the IPL playoffs were started, no team has won the championship after finishing outside the top two, with the exception of Sunrisers Hyderabad in 2016. Knight Riders did not even come close to changing that. After choosing to bowl, they had one of the worst fielding experiences since the competition was shifted to the United Arab Emirates. The Super Kings’ top order took a lot of the fast bowlers’ wickets and would not allow their spinners to settle.
Leading the way with 86 runs, Faf du Plessis anchored half-century stands for each of the three wickets that fell in Super Kings’ 192 runs. After Robin Uthappa and Moeen Ali completed their batting roles, Venkatesh Iyer’s innings – along with a risky opening partnership – was interrupted by Shardul Thakur, shattering Knight Riders’ middle order and condemning them to their first IPL final loss.
Du Plessis scored a half-century in one of those pivotal games the last two times the Super Kings made it to the IPL playoffs, in 2018 and 2019. In the biggest match of the season, in the Indian Premier League 2021, he repeated the feat with a smooth 86.
His innings tonight concluded with the final ball of the innings, meaning that the Super Kings’ Ruturaj Gaikwad and he were the two top run scorers at the end of the tournament. The two kicked Super Kings into high gear as soon as the championship game started tonight.
Early in the innings, Gaikwad’s strategy often goes toward safety first, but when Knight Riders presented a favorable matchup, he reversed course: Gaikwad, who has never been out of an IPL wicket against a left-arm spinner and has averaged over ten runs per over against these bowlers, decided he wouldn’t miss out when Shakib Al Hasan bowled two overs during the powerplay. In those overs, he was hit for two boundaries and a six, but it was soon clear that this pitch lacked any of Sharjah’s characteristics.
However, Knight Riders were able to contain him towards the conclusion of the powerplay, and by the end, his 32 off 27 when he was dismissed by Sunil Narine in the ninth over, would not have looked good.
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After that, during the middle overs, du Plessis and Robin Uthappa—who scored 63 in the Super Kings’ most recent match—took the attack. Shakib was the one who broke the chains once more, as his third over resulted in sixes for both Uthappa and du Plessis. A six was hit in every but one of the 63 runs the pair scored off of 5.2 overs, excluding the over in which they were joined. Lockie Ferguson’s back-of-a-length deliveries, which feature a back-foot punch over extra cover, were also tucked in by du Plessis for exquisite boundaries.
Even though a worn-out du Plessis could only muster 34 off his final 24 balls, the Super Kings would not give up on their sixes. After a brief Shardul Thakur experiment in their previous encounter, Moeen Ali returned to the No. 4 spot and hit three of them. After being called in to bat in a final, there were eleven sixes, three straight half-century stands, and a total of 192 at the end of the innings. At that point, the Super Kings’ major concerns would have been the pitch’s continued quality and the possibility of dew.
One thing connected Knight Riders’ post-qualification route to the championship game: they bowled first, strangled two teams, then chased when the batting grew easier. In the end, Morgan won the toss and chose to bowl, so everything went well in the beginning. However, that was where the parallel ended.
Shakib was able to bowl sparingly in Sharjah early in the innings, but Gaikwad got the best of him during the powerplay. Earlier in the game, Dinesh Karthik failed to stump captain Du Plessis, and their preferred fast bowler, Ferguson, went for 56, his most costly IPL performance. In what turned out to be the worst bowling innings for Knight Riders during the UAE tour, Morgan himself misplayed thrice.
After Josh Hazlewood created an edge, MS Dhoni made a routine catch going reverse-cup to his left, giving Venkatesh Iyer a reprieve from the second ball of his innings. Iyer continued and scored his fourth fifty of the year, being particularly good at picking the gaps in an off-side ring that had six fielders at one point. In addition, he demonstrated his now-famous swing to the leg side of the ball right after he was downed.
Dhoni was rightfully compelled to bowl Dwayne Bravo over Ravindra Jadeja following a 55-run powerplay without a wicket. Iyer smacked Dhoni back out of the attack with two sixes over the leg side, forcing him to bring on Jadeja.
Had Ambati Rayudu’s catch, which came in from deep midwicket, held up, Shubman Gill’s other fifty might not have happened. The incorrect slug impacted the spidercam wire while falling, instantly killing the ball, which is why it didn’t stand. At that moment, Dhoni was shaking his head angrily. In 10.4 overs, Knight Riders’ first stand amassed 91 runs.
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Shardul Thakur was the one who gave the Super Kings the wickets they needed. Instead of launching him over the extra cover as planned, Iyer wound up slicing it high for Jadeja, who grasped on with his fingertips before encircling it with his palms at sweeper cover. Super Kings were jogging towards Jadeja at that point, and you could feel their relief. A tiny opening had been established, but Knight Riders had nine wickets in hand with the required rate hovering around ten.
However, Thakur scored another in the same over. Nitish Rana entered at number three in lieu of an injured Rahul Tripathi. Rana’s drive on the rise and Thakur’s cross-seam delivery that got stuck in the pitch only resulted in a first-ball duck being caught at mid-off.
At number four, Narine entered the game. Dhoni instantly went to his fastest bowler, but Hazlewood ended that gamble in two deliveries.
By then, 91 for 0 had become 97 for 3 in six balls that were legal, and by the end of the 15th over, it would have escalated to 120 for 6. Here’s how: with momentum in their favour, Dhoni returned to Jadeja to try and further restrict Knight Riders.Â
Shortly after Deepak Chahar ended Gill’s arduous 51 off 43, he removed Karthik and Shakib in one over. Until Ferguson and Shivam Mavi found some boundaries, there would be no other double-digit score for Knight Riders outside of the openers’, but by then the match was way out of reach for Knight Riders.
