Kolkata Knight Riders captain Shreyas Iyer's trademark antics at the coin toss continued in the IPL 2024 final against Sunrisers Hyderabad today. Iyer, known for his flair at the toss, added a spin while flipping the coin, but luck favoured Sunrisers Hyderabad captain Pat Cummins, who won the toss and elected to bat first.  Despite losing the toss, Iyer expressed satisfaction with the outcome, stating a preference to bowl first in the crucial match.

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This isn't the first time Iyer has employed unique tactics during the toss. Earlier in the IPL, he kissed the coin for luck before flicking it against RR at Eden Gardens, but lost that toss as well. Despite these efforts, Iyer boasts a strong toss record in the IPL, winning 36 out of 69 tosses as captain, with a success rate of 52.17%. In the 2020 IPL final, Iyer won the toss and chose to bat, but KKR could only manage 156/7, a target easily chased down by Mumbai Indians for their record fifth title.

Cummins chose to bowl first, confident in the pitch conditions at the MA Chidambaram Stadium.

"We will bat first. Looks like a good wicket. Never the best at reading wickets. Played at a different one in the last, this looks different. There was no dew the other night so hopefully, it's the same tonight. Fingers crossed that today is one of those nights," Cummins said.

SRH successfully defended a target in the Qualifier 2 at the same venue against Rajasthan Royals (RR) recently. Meanwhile, KKR's only away loss this season came against Chennai Super Kings (CSK) at the MA Chidambaram Stadium.

Teams:

Sunrisers Hyderabad: Pat Cummins (c), Travis Head, Abhishek Sharma, Rahul Tripathi, Aiden Markram, Nitish Reddy, Heinrich Klaasen (w), Shahbaz Ahmed, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Jaydev Unadkat, T Natarajan.

Kolkata Knight Riders: Shreyas Iyer (c), Rahmanullah Gurbaz (w), Sunil Narine, Venkatesh Iyer, Rinku Singh, Andre Russell, Ramandeep Singh, Mitchell Starc, Vaibhav Arora, Harshit Rana, Varun Chakaravarthy.