How did KKR find the formula to become a champion: Attacking batting and depth, trust on match winners and Gambhir’s mentorship brought the third trophy

Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) has won the IPL 2024 title. Kolkata defeated Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) by 8 wickets in the final held in Chennai on Sunday. Kolkata’s team has become the IPL champion for the third time. Earlier, the team has also won the title in 2012 and 2014. After losing the final to Chennai in 2021, the team could not even play the playoffs in 2022 and 2023.

In such a situation, the question arises that what did Kolkata do differently this time, which made it the champion. There seem to be 9 important factors behind this. Know the winning formula of Kolkata…

1. Gambhir gave license to kill
Kolkata decided to appoint its former captain Gautam Gambhir as mentor for this season. It is said that the team owner Shahrukh Khan had placed a blank cheque in front of Gambhir and offered him mentorship for the next 10 years. Gambhir was earlier the mentor of Lucknow Super Giants. He joined Kolkata and transformed the team as soon as he arrived.

Gambhir gave his players a license to kill. That is, go to the ground and express yourself. An example of this is Sunil Narine. Sunil Narine, who used to bat at number 7-8, opened the innings this season and despite failing on some occasions, he kept getting opportunities.

Gambhir’s formula- Don’t be afraid of failure. Its result is now in front of everyone.

2. Outstanding Stark
The 2015 final and the explosive batsman Brandon McCullum, who has scored 4 fifties at the Melbourne Stadium, is at the crease. The ball is in Mitchell Starc’s hands. Mitchell bowled Brandon on the very first ball. The tournament did not start well, but by the final he had 22 wickets in his bag.

Starc did the same in IPL 2024. He bowled Travis Head on the second ball of Qualifier-1. Took 3 wickets in the power-play. After this, he bowled Abhishek Sharma on the 5th ball in the final. It was a dream swing delivery. Starc told why Kolkata bought him by bidding 24.75 crores.

3. Aggressive batting approach
Kolkata’s team was among the most aggressive batting teams this season. Kolkata scored more than 70 runs in the power-play 7 times in the season. The team also scored 200+ in 7 matches this year.

The strike rate of 6 batsmen of the team was 150+. In 2024, Kolkata batsmen played 45% attacking shots. In 2022, the team played 41.08% attacking shots and in 2023, 41% attacking shots. This approach was new for Hyderabad, but not for Kolkata, because they were also attacking in the last 2 seasons.

In this approach, if they face initial setbacks, then batsmen like Shreyas and Venkatesh keep acting as shock observers in the middle overs. Shreyas Iyer has not been dismissed while chasing throughout the season.

4. Backup plan always ready
Whenever the plan of attacking batting failed in the power-play, Kolkata still scored the required score and won the match. The first match of the season was against Hyderabad. Kolkata, batting first, lost 4 wickets for 51 runs. Despite this, the team reached 208 runs.

Russell, Rinku and Ramandeep shone in the middle order. On May 3, against Mumbai, the team lost 5 wickets for 57 runs. Venkatesh (70 runs) and Manish Pandey (42 runs), who came in at number 5 and 7, took the score to 169. Kolkata won the match.

In the entire tournament, Venkatesh scored 370, Shreyas scored 351, Russell scored 222 and Rinku Singh scored 168 runs, strengthening the team from the middle order to the lower order.

5. Overcame weakness against short pitch bowling
In 2022-23, Kolkata batsmen were collapsing in front of short pitch bowling. In 2022-23, Kolkata batsmen were scoring runs on these balls at a run rate of 7.67 and the team’s average score was 17.47. The team worked on this in the pre-season. In 2024, Kolkata is at number three in terms of scoring more runs against short balls.

This year the team’s run rate against these balls has been around 10 and the team average has improved to 29. This season, Salt batted at a strike rate of 190 against short pitch and short of good length balls. Ramandeep’s strike rate was 240. Narine’s strike rate was 172 and Venkatesh Iyer’s was 163. Many of the team’s matches were played on bouncy pitches, but the batsmen were ready earlier.

6. Opening change became a game changer
Sunil Narine was brought in as an opener. Phil Salt and Rahmanullah Gurbaz supported him. Sunil Narine scored 488 runs at a strike rate of 181. He hit 3 fifties and also scored his first T20 century. Salt was not bought in the IPL auction. He came as a replacement for Jason Roy and scored 435 runs at a strike rate of 182.

Salt and Narine opened together and scored 559 runs.

7. Depth and flexibility in batting

8. Best combination in bowling

9. 2 world class all-rounders from West Indies
The team has world class all-rounders. Both are from West Indies. Andre Russell and Sunil Narine. Russell took 3 wickets in the final and Sunil Narine took one wicket. Andre Russell scored 222 runs and hit a fifty. He has 18 wickets in this IPL. Narine, who has scored 482 runs, took 17 wickets.

3 reasons for Hyderabad’s defeat in the end