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The Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) opening pair of Travis Head and Abhishek Sharma, which had guided the team to record-breaking starts throughout the tournament, ended the season on a sad note as both the batters failed to make a mark in the final of the Indian Premier League (IPL) against Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) on Sunday.
During the title clash, both openers continued their poor run in the knockout stage, with Abhishek cleaned up by Mitchell Starc for two runs in five balls while Travis was caught behind for a golden duck by pacer Vaibhav Arora. Abhishek and Head have not been at their best in the playoffs, with Head scoring 0 (against KKR in qualifier one), a sloppy 34 in 28 balls against Rajasthan Royals (RR) in qualifier two and another duck in the final. Abhishek on the other hand, scored three against KKR, 12 against RR in qualifier two and two runs against KKR in the final. Head and Abhishek have had the highest partnership scoring rate by a pair in IPL history during a single season, with 13.46 runs per over in the ongoing season, outdoing the KKR's star pair of Sunil Narine and Phil Salt, who scored their runs at 12.46 per over this season and the duo of Faf Du Plessis and Glenn Maxwell from Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB), who scored at a run-rate of 11.49 per over. Also, Head and Abhishek are among the players with the highest strike rate during powerplay in an IPL season in the history of the tournament. The highest-ever strike rate in powerplay by an IPL player in the tournament's history during a season is by Delhi Capitals' star Jake Fraser McGurk, who had a powerplay strike rate of 250.94. Head is at the second spot with 209.29 and Abhishek Sharma is at the fourth spot with 202.95. Head ends his season with 567 runs at an average of 40.50 and a strike rate of 191.55, with a century and four fifties. His best score is 102. In 16 matches, Abhishek has scored 484 runs at an average of 32.26, with a strike rate of 204.21, with three half-centuries. His best score is 75*. Sunrisers Hyderabad captain Pat Cummins won the toss and opted to bat in the final of the Indian Premier League 2024 against Kolkata Knight Riders on Sunday at the MA Chidambaram Stadium. In what turns out to be a repeat of the Qualifier 1 clash, Sunrisers would look to turn the tides this time around after their batting-first approach flopped against the Riders. KKR As they go on to write the latest chapter in an engaging rivalry, all eyes will be on the battle between the two biggest purchases in the history of the IPL. All eyes will be on the performance of KKR's Starc went for a record fee of Rs 24.75 crore and SRH's Cummins was acquired for a price tag of Rs 20.50 crore. Sunrisers Hyderabad (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. Kolkata Knight Riders (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 Sunrisers Hyderabad Impact Subs: Umran Malik, Glenn Phillips, Mayank Markande, Abdul Samad, Washington Sundar Kolkata Knight Riders Impact Subs: Anukul Roy, Manish Pandey, Nitish Rana, KS Bharat, Sherfaine Rutherford. (ANI)
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