IPL Final | What Experts Said as CSK golden generation rout KKR to lift one final title

Chennai Super Kings rolled over Kolkata Knight Riders on Friday night, 15 October to win their fourth Indian Premier League title. Dominant from ball one, CSK pulled away from their competition, putting up quickfire 61 runs before the departure of their young gun Ruturaj Gaikwad. KKR tried to pull the game back momentarily putting a stop to the flow of runs, but some exceptional pyrotechnics from Robin Uthappa and Faf du Plessis made sure that CSK were put in a strong position at the end of the first innings, piling up a total of 192 runs for the loss of only three wickets. But more on that later.

Defending such a huge total seemed like an easy task during the break, but the opening duo of Venkatesh Iyer and Shubman Gill had other ideas. While Shubman struggled to hit the gaps, Iyer raced through his innings. 

In the powerplay, KKR were chasing at 9 RPO and that continued till the 11th over when Iyer fell to Shardul Thakur after completing his half-century.

Shardul’s exploits in the middle phase of the innings, and Dwayne Bravo’s classic run choking technique meant that KKR were never in the battle. 

The team lost their entire middle order under 20 runs and were in no position to compete by the end of the 17th over.

Given a high-pressure game, there was a lot to talk about. Experts pointed out that were strategic failures from KKR, while CSK rode on a very special tactical combination at the top.

But before that, here are the captains’ comments and what they thought about the game.

Captains' viewpoint

Losing captain Eoin Morgan did not have any complaints about the game. He rather focused on the incredible turnaround they had in the UAE leg of the tournament and showered praises on Venkatesh Iyer and Shubman Gill.

"We are extremely proud of the fight we have shown. The character and fight is trademark. Our owners - Shahrukh, Venky have been absolutely outstanding." Morgan said.

"Guys fought incredibly hard and performed. Iyer and Gill have been outstanding. Venkatesh is new to this platform. They have been the cornerstone of our batting," he further added.

He made a special mention about Rahul Tripathi, how unfortunately picked up a hamstring injury while fielding in the first innings and had to hobble off the field with the help of the physio.

However, Tripathi did come out to bat and in a pure show of character even tried to pinch quick singles.

Morgan stated that “Tripathi laid everything out there tonight” and that he is really proud of the spirit of this unit.

Winning captain MS Dhoni showed true class in the post match presentation and first chose to discuss KKR’s season rather than showering praises on his own team.

“Before I start talking about CSK, need to talk about KKR. Difficult to come back and do what they have, if any team deserved to win the IPL, it's KKR. Huge credit to the coaches, team and support staff. The break really helped them.” The majestic captain said.

Dhoni spoke on length about what CSK have done over the years and thanked fans across the world who have supported Chennai Super Kings wherever they have played.

He further talked about how it is time for the core group to move out and take a long and hard look at the existing core and figure out who can contribute to the franchise for the next 10 years.

Experts Opinions

A lot of things went wrong for KKR in this game, and perhaps one of the most important strategic blunders was to feed the talismanic Ruturaj Gaikwad spin.

While the template had worked in the pitches of Sharjah, captain Eoin Morgan probably did a number on his own team by starting with Shakib al Hasan on a track that historically supports pace for a brief period at the start of the game.

It meant that KKR’s strike bowler Lockie Ferguson did not bowl at the time that would have helped him and Shakib got no help either.

Both bowlers proved the costliest on the night with Shakib giving away 33 in his three overs and Ferguson 56 in his four.

Experts also pointed out the reason behind the success of the Chennai opening pair who have notched up 1238 runs between them. They stated that this complementing pair neutralises each other's deficiencies and smartly manipulates the situation based on the bowling attack of the individual teams.

KKR did not make things easy for themselves as well, with Dinesh Karthik putting down a couple of sharp chances in the field. The former captain of the franchise has had horrid days in the field in the entire playoffs stages of the tournament and the story was no different in Dubai as well.

Ruturaj Gaikwad took full benefit of DK’s mistakes and put on 32 runs on the night to become the Orange cap winner of the IPL 2021.

Gaikwad was not the only one who dominated the stats on the night. After his wicket, his opening partner Faf du Plessis and countryman Robin Uthappa took charge and bludgeoned the KKR team out of the attack. For that matter, Ruturaj’s orange cap was in threat at a point with Faf briskly scoring at the pace of 146 SR, but he fell just three runs short of the record.

One innings though caught the eye of several people and in the coming years, it would be remembered as one of the best cameos to have been ever played in an IPL final.

When CSK were struggling a little with the run rate, Uthappa put his foot down and counterattacked the spin duo of Sunil Narine and Varun Chakravarthy. In his 15-ball 31 innings, Uthappa hit three sixes and dismantled the bowlers who have operated incredibly well in the middle overs of the game.

When things looked like going out of hand for KKR due to the Uthappa innings, it was once again the wizard from Trinidad, Sunil Narine, who came to the fore and stemmed the flow.

Experts notified their crowd once again that neither Narine nor Faf are in their national teams for the T20 World Cup, and it would be an incredible miss for the cricketing world to not see their magic at the grandest stage of all.

Not a lot happened in the second innings barring the exploits of Venky Iyer who seemed to be on a roll at a point. But it was once again a double-wicket over from Shardul Thakur that did damage control for CSK and brought them back in the game.

Former India cricketer Wasim Jaffer, who is known for his cheeky digs put out a tweet for him.

It will be an understatement to say that Eoin Morgan has had a horrid season with the bat. He now has the lowest average by a captain in any season of the Indian Premier League, a statistic that he never hoped he would by his name. It sums up the middle order failures of the Knights and serves as a warning to the English set-up that something might be very wrong with their captain going into the T20 World Cup.

In a rather uneventful chase, Shubman Gill was given a life after his ariel shot hit the camera cable before falling into the hands of Ambati Rayudu. This provided a good opportunity for some to go down the memory lane and reminisce if an odd instance as this one had happened before.

New Indian Express journalist Venkata Krishna B echoed Dhoni's sentiments from earlier and pointed out that Chennai would need to start once again. After all, this mega auction will mark the end of the ageing CSK nucleus who have done incredible things since 2008 and leave the stage as one of the most successful set of players to play the shorter format of the game.

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