OCTOBER 15, 2021
Brief Scorecard: Chennai Super Kings 192 for 3 (du Plessis 86, Moeen 37*, Narine 2-26) beat Kolkata Knight Riders 165 for 9 (Gill 51, Iyer 50, Thakur 3-38, Hazlewood 2-29) by 27 runs
Chennai Super Kings won the IPL title for the 4th time on Friday in Dubai, beating the two-time champion Kolkata Knight Riders by 27 runs in the IPL 2021 final on Friday in Dubai. The Eoin Morgan-led KKR could not chase the mammoth 192-run-total and conceded defeat to a dominant MS Dhoni’s CSK. BCCI President Sourav Ganguly and Board secretary Jay Shah handed over the trophy to the Chennai skipper, who immediately gave away the cup to the teammates for the team photo with the title.
The children and wives of the players also joined the photographs and celebrations. Kids of MS Dhoni, Suresh Raina, Moeen Ali, and others can be seen in the visuals. Wives of the CSK stars too came in the frame with the team and the support staff.
CSK, after this win, can clearly be called the most consistent team of the tournament across seasons since its inception in 2008. Apart from 2016 and 2017, when the team was suspended and last year, the team has always qualified for the playoffs. This was the 9th IPL final for the yellow army. KKR, on the other hand, had never lost an IPL final before this, winning the title in 2012 and 2014 under Gautam Gambhir.
Talking about the match, the men in purple won the toss and asked CSK to bat first. The in-form openers gave a strong start with a 61-run-stand before Ruturaj Gaikwad was dismissed by Narine on 32. Faf du Plessis went on to score 86 off 59 runs falling just 2 runs short of his partner in the orange cap race. Quick 30 plus knocks from Robin Uthappa and Moeen Ali helped the score to 192 runs in 20 overs.
KKR gave a befitting response to the target in the first half of their innings with a 91-run-stand from the openers Venkatesh Iyer(50) and Shubman Gill (51). But with Rahul Tripathi unable to come in at 3 due to injury and all the other batters failing to get a start, the team bundled out for 165.
