Sunil Narine will certainly regret his stay for final, over the inclusion in West Indies test squad. King’s XI retained Vohra and he paid back in gold with his best innings saved for the final. But Saha took away all the laurels becoming the first centurion of an IPL final. Sehwag, Bailey, Maxwell and Miller added only 9 runs, and still Kings XI Punjab ended up scoring 199/4, IPLs second highest score in the final. The 200-run team of IPL 2014 was again there, just because of the 129 runs third wicket partnership in just 12 overs between Vohra and Saha. Can KKR repeat their high chase of 190 runs executed in 2012?
Statistics
- 115* by Saha is the first century by any batsman in IPL final.
199/4 is the second highest score in IPL final, after 205 of CSK, in 2011 final.
129 run partnership for 3rd wicket between Vohra and Saha.
Kings XI Score 199/4
Being sent to bat at Bangalore in the IPL final of 7th edition, playing their first IPL final, Kings XI was in for a shock as not only their Qualifier centurion Sehwag (7 runs in 10 balls with a four) but also their Captain Bailey who promoted himself like Dhoni did in IPL 2011 final, was also back to pavilion and in 5.1 overs they had managed only 30/2.
Maxwell was still not sent as Narine had bowled Bailey on his first ball. Saha arrived. The strategy must have been to hold back Maxwell and Miller to get at least 150+ score. For the first 5 overs both of them could add only 28 runs, as Kings reached 58/1 in 10 overs. But, after that it was a treat to watch. Narine, Morkel, Shakib, Chawla, Umesh Yadav allll were hit outside the park. Vohra was out on the first ball of 18th over of Chawla. He scored 52-ball 67 runs with 6 4s and 2 6s. In the same over Maxwell failed again to get back to form, going for a duck. But with the score reading 170/4 and 2 more overs to go Kings were not worried. Miller got to play only the last ball of the match on which he scored a single, as Saha continued to torment becoming the first batsman to hit a century in the IPL final. He was unbeaten on 55-ball 115 runs with 8 6s and 10 4s.
Shakib was lucky to be completing his spell when both started their charge as he had the best spell of KKR with 0/26. But the massacre could be understood by checking the spellls of other four bowlers. Morkel 0/40, Umesh Yadav 1/39, Narine 1/46 and Chawla 2/44.
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