On This Day: In the finals of the Indian Premier League 17th season, Kolkata Knight Riders won their third title. The finals against Sunrisers Hyderabad at MA Chidambaram Stadium in Chennai yesterday. KKR outplayed the Orange Army in every aspect of this gentlemen’s game and won the finals by eight wickets. Iyer and co bundled out Cummins and his men for just 114 runs and then chased that score down in 10.3 overs.
On this day in 2018, Chennai Super Kings won their 3rd trophy in the cash-rich league tournament. Dhoni and his men won the finals against Kane Williamson’s Sunrisers Hyderabad. But in this season of the TATA IPL 2024, under a new skipper named Ruturaj Gaikwad, the Yellow Army couldn’t get into the top four. So today let us relive that moment of glory, which happened in 2018 on this day.
On This Day: Let Us Know What Happened Before CSK Clinched Their 3rd IPL Title –Â
The officials of Chennai Super Kings and Rajasthan Royals were involved in spot-fixing. So the Board for Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) decided to ban these two teams for two seasons of IPL 2016 and IPL 2017. Then two new teams were brought in as replacements. Rising Pune Supergiants (RPS) and Gujarat Lions (GL) had played in those two editions.
RPS was led by MS Dhoni in the IPL 2016 season, and Suresh Raina captained the GL team in both seasons. But the RPS team finished last in the IPL 2016 season, and the captaincy was taken back from MS Dhoni, and it was handed over to Steve Smith in the next IPL 2017 season. Smith did a good job as the captain, and RPS reached its maiden and only finals in the next season of 2017.
But they lost that match by just one run against Mumbai Indians, and in the IPL 2018 season, both the teams Rajasthan Royals and Chennai Super Kings were back in this cash-rich league tournament after they served their bans for two years each. The CSK fans were emotional after seeing many stars back in the yellow jersey.
On the night of the finals on this day, Sunrisers Hyderabad team lost their opening wicketkeeper-batsman, Sreevats Goswami, just for five runs. But Shikhar Dhawan steadied the ship for the orange army with a 26-run knock, and SRH were placed comfortably despite the early loss of Goswami. Dhawan was joined by the skipper of the SRH team.
Kane Williamson played well to score 47 runs to his name, and later Yusuf Pathan carried the innings perfectly. In the 13th over, Karan Sharma dismissed the SRH skipper. But it was hard to stop the power-hitting skills of Yusuf Pathan. He slammed 45 runs from just 25 balls and was unbeaten till the end. Pathan smashed four boundaries and two sixes in his knock.
On Thia Day: The run chase was all about Shane Watson’s Knock –Â
Chennai Super Kings managed to restrict the Sunrisers Hyderabad team to a score of 178 runs for the loss of six wickets in their quota of 20 overs. Lungi Ngidi, Ravindra Jadeja, Shardul Thakur, DJ Bravo, and Karan Sharma picked up one wicket each to their names and helped the CSK team restrict the SRH team below the score of 200 runs.
Faf Du Plessis was out early in the run chase of 179 runs. Faf scored just ten runs. Before this game, Du Plessis had single-handedly guided the CSK team to the final with an unbeaten knock of 67 runs in the qualifier one match, which was played at the Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai. The wickets were tumbling. But still, Faf held his nerve to play a special knock for CSK.
But in the final, it was a magical innings from the former Australian and Chennai Super Kings all-rounder, Shane Watson. Chennai Super Kings chased down the target of 179 runs in just 18.2 overs because of a special hundred from Watto. Shane Watson scored an unbeaten 117 runs to take CSK through their third IPL title. He also won the Player of the Match award in the big event.
Also Read – Indian Premier League: 2 Wicketkeeper Batters Have Won The Orange Cap In History Of IPL
