Bengaluru (Karnataka) [India], June 1 : On this day, Gautam Gambhir led Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) became the second team to win the Indian Premier League (IPL) title twice in the year 2014 after defeating Kings XI Punjab (Punjab Kings) in a thrilling final by three wickets.
KKR winning the toss in a decider match, put Virender Sehwag's side to bat first in the M Chinnaswamy stadium in Bengaluru.
PBKS's opener Manan Vohra played a solid knock of 67 off 52 balls and later young batter Wriddhiman Saha displayed a scintillating show and clinched his maiden century of IPL in the final.
With Saha's brilliant knock, PKBS gave a huge target of 200 runs to one-time champion KKR.
For KKR, Piyush Chawla had taken two wickets. Umesh Yadav and Sunil Narine had also taken one wicket each. Morne Morkel and Shakib Al Hasan did not get any breakthrough.
Chasing a massive total, Kolkata did not get a good start as their opener Robin Uthappa dismissed early and then Captain Gautam Gambhir also lost his wicket, scoring 23 off 17 balls. However, Manish Pandey and Yusuf Pathan steered the innings. They together guided the scoreboard of KKR to 130 in 13.3 overs.
Yusuf Pathan became a target of Glenn Maxwell when he was batting at 36 off 22 balls.
Manish Pandey from one side was scoring runs to keep up with the required run rate but KKR's batters were dismissing at regular intervals of time.
After playing a match-winning knock of 94 off 50 balls, Pandey was dismissed by Karanveer Singh's bowling.
In the last over KKR needed 10 runs and in the third ball, Piyush Chawla with his boundary clinched the trophy for KKR.
Karanveer Singh was the pick of the bowler for PBKS with four wickets. Mitchell Johnson had also taken two wickets.
Manish Pandey was awarded 'Man of the Match' for his brilliant knock.
Kolkata's first half of the season was not great as they had lost five matches in the first seven matches. But they displayed great temperament and made a remarkable comeback in the second half of the tournament. They ended their league-stage journey by becoming the top-second team in the points table.
KKR was exceptional in the tournament and the team had performance in both the departments. Robin Uthappa was the 'Orange Cap' holder with 660 runs. He scored runs with an average of 44.00 and his best knock was an unbeaten 83. Following him Chennai Super Kings's batter Dwayne Smith was the second-leading run-getter with 566 runs in 16 matches. PBKS's Glenn Maxwell was placed third with 552 runs in 16 matches.
Chennai Super Kings bowler Mohit Sharma was the 'Purple Cap' holder after taking 23 wickets in 16 matches.
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