IPL 2025: KKR vs SRH – Which Finalist of IPL 2024 will Emerge Victorious?
The finalists of IPL 2024 are finally facing off this season. Their respective situations though, aren’t as pleasant in 2025. Three games down, Kolkata Knight Riders sit at the bottom of the table while Sunrisers Hyderabad find themselves only two places higher ahead of their clash at Eden Gardens.
SRH and KKR will face each other off in match number 15 in the ongoing Indian Premier League edition on April 3, Thursday.
The two outstanding teams that had piled on big scores last season, could potentially find themselves engaged in a not so high scoring contest this time around. This is a rematch of the previous year’s final, which KKR had won by eight wickets, to lift their third title in 2024.
KKR, which is being led by Ajinkya Rahane, suffered a disappointing seven-wicket loss to Royal Challengers Bengaluru in the season opener. With the only win so far through their second game, the last match against Mumbai Indians ended terribly, with a total batting collapse.
Similarly, SRH too has had a start-stop season so far. The Pat Cummins led men in orange had a brilliant opening game against the Rajasthan Royals, smashing 286 runs and winning the game by 44 runs. However, following that, their results have gone south as they lost both of their previous games to Lucknow Super Giants and Delhi Capitals.
Interestingly, both the franchises have faced each other in 28 matches in the history of IPL. Out of these encounters, SRH have won 9 times whereas the KKR army have come out victorious on 19 occasions.
SRH and KKR have long batting line-ups, though SRH does seem better equipped this time around, with an enviable order. To get through them is not easy.
KKR Predicted XI:
Sunil Narine, Quinton de Kock (wk), Ajinkya Rahane, Venkatesh Iyer, Rinku Singh, Andre Russell, Ramandeep Singh, Moeen Ali, Harshit Rana, Varun Chakravarthy, Vaibhav Arora
Impact Player Options: Angkrish Raghuvanshi, Manish Pandey
SRH Predicted XI:
Abhishek Sharma, Travis Head, Ishan Kishan, Nitish Reddy, Heinrich Klaasen (wk), Aniket Verma, Abhinav Manohar, Pat Cummins, Harshal Patel, Mohammed Shami, Adam Zampa
Impact Player options: Zeeshan Ansari
Throwing some light on the pitch, the Eden Garden Stadium is often referred to as the ‘Lords of India’, for its iconic stature as a venue. It has produced some of the flattest surfaces ever seen in the IPL.
The upcoming game is expected to be a run-fest, considering the power-hitting batters present in both teams. Being a batting paradise, the bowlers on both sides might have to toil hard for success.
With the win predictability inching towards the team from south, the Sunrisers definitely look more composed and better prepared to face the defending champions and weak-in-form Kolkata Knight Riders.
By: Tulika Agarwal
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