Ex-Indian cricketer Mohammad Kaif has questioned the SunRisers Hyderabad for letting Abhishek Sharma take the strike against Mitchell Starc in the IPL 2024 final at the M.A. Chidambaram Stadium in Chennai. With Travis Head usually taking the strike and not doing it on this occasion, Kaif reminded that Australians are known to take challenges head on.
With Head having a torrid record against Starc, Abhishek Sharma decided to take striker against the left-arm speedster. However, the veteran Aussie cricketer produced what has been called as the ball of the tournament to clean up Abhishek cheaply. Starc had notably castled Head for a duck in the Qualifier 1 in Ahmedabad.
Kaif took to X and wrote:
"For final Abhishek taking first strike, and not Head, was a defensive tactic. Starc has got Head out in the past but aren't the Aussies known to take up challenges head on? Wrong move SRH."
The Aussie left-hander was eventually dismissed for a duck by Vaibhav Arora.
Playing XI of teams in IPL 2024 final:
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.
The Kolkata-based franchise have already beaten the Orange Army twice in this tournament and start considerable favourites for the tournament-decider. The Knight Riders also hammered the SunRisers by 8 wickets in Qualifier 1.
