Reliving the magical moments of the Indian Premier League Final, over the years

7. Kolkata Knight Riders vs Kings XI Punjab – IPL 2014

The Chennai Super Kings failed to make it to the finals after five years in 2014. The Kings XI Punjab had a dream season in 2014 as they lost only three games out of 14 and topped the points table courtesy some sheer brilliance from Glenn Maxwell. KKR ended second on the points table and was the first team to qualify for the finals. Punjab team defeated the Super Kings in the second qualifier. KXIP had a golden chance to get their hands on the silverware for the first time ever.

After a long time, the team winning the toss chose to bowl first. In a high-scoring encounter, KXIP was put into bat first by KKR. Of all the six batsmen who batted for KXIP, only two stood out. Manan Vohra and Wriddhiman Saha together scored almost 92% of the team’s score. Wriddhiman Saha scored a century and remained not out on 115 of just 55 balls at the end of the innings. Saha alone scored 58% of the runs while Manan Vohra scored 67 runs in his innings.

KKR was set a massive target of 200 to chase down in the finals. This time it was Manish Pandey who took the onus upon himself as he scored a breezy 94 off 50 balls. Yusuf Pathan scored 36 off 22 while Piyush Chawla finished the innings off with a quickfire 13 from 5 deliveries. KKR went on to win their second IPL title with this victory leveling CSK’s record.

Top Performers of the season

Saha’s brilliant knock was overshadowed by that of Manish Pandey in the finals. Manish was awarded the ‘Man of the Match’. Glenn Maxwell, who played top-notch cricket throughout the tournament was adjudged the ‘Player of the Series’.

Brief Scores:
KXIP: 199/4 in 20 overs ( Wriddhiman Saha 115*, Manan Vohra 67, Piyush Chawla 2/44)
KKR; 200/7 in 19.3 overs ( Manish Pandey 94, Yusuf Pathan 36, Karanveer Singh 4/54)