"Hopefully knock the shine off him...": SRH's Head hopeful of scoring against Starc in IPL final against KKR

Chennai (Tamil Nadu) [India], May 26 : Ahead of his side's Indian Premier League (IPL) final clash against Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR), Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) opener Travis Head expressed hope that he will emerge victorious against compatriot Mitchell Starc in a battle of superstars.
Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) and Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH), two of the biggest trailblazers of the ongoing Indian Premier League (IPL), will be taking on the title clash at the Chepauk Stadium in Chennai on Sunday. KKR finished the league stage on the top of the points table with nine wins, three losses and two no results, giving them 20 points. They earned a direct spot in the final by defeating SRH in the qualifier one. SRH got a second shot at the title in the qualifier two against Rajasthan Royals (RR) and they made the most of it by defeating the Men in Pink by 36 runs.
Head was dismissed for a duck by Starc in the qualifier one at Ahmedabad on May 21. In four outings, Starc has allowed Head to make just one run against him. Head has been dismissed for three ducks by Starc.
Speaking ahead of the game, Head said on Starc, "We have had our battles over the years and he has won a fair few of them, hopefully knock the shine off him tonight and then we get off to a good start."
On playing the final, Travis said, "It is another final. It is nice to be here, it is been a very enjoyable couple of months, so hopefully, we can top it off tonight and please a lot of fans."
Speaking about SRH losing wickets in the powerplay as of late, Head said, "We would obviously like to lose a little bit less. We got to 170 both times without hitting the marks that we wanted to hit. That is exciting as a group and we spoke about that - we want to go out and continue to play aggressive, play positively and do what we have done the whole time. The positive is that we have been able to get to totals that have given us half a chance with a powerplay like that. So hopefully tonight we can get off to a really good start and get to a really big score."
Sunrisers Hyderabad captain Pat Cummins won the toss and opted to bat in the final of the Indian Premier League 2024 against Kolkata Knight Riders on Sunday at the MA Chidambaram Stadium.
In what turns out to be a repeat of the Qualifier 1 clash, Sunrisers would look to turn the tides this time around after their batting-first approach flopped against the Riders. KKR As they go on to write the latest chapter in an engaging rivalry, all eyes will be on the battle between the two biggest purchases in the history of the IPL. All eyes will be on the performance of KKR's Starc went for a record fee of Rs 24.75 crore and SRH's Cummins was acquired for a price tag of Rs 20.50 crore.
Sunrisers Hyderabad (Playing XI): Travis Head, Abhishek Sharma, Rahul Tripathi, Aiden Markram, Nitish Reddy, Heinrich Klaasen(w), Shahbaz Ahmed, Pat Cummins(c), Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Jaydev Unadkat, T Natarajan.
Kolkata Knight Riders (Playing XI): Rahmanullah Gurbaz(w), Sunil Narine, Venkatesh Iyer, Shreyas Iyer(c), Rinku Singh, Andre Russell, Ramandeep Singh, Mitchell Starc, Vaibhav Arora, Harshit Rana, Varun Chakaravarthy
Sunrisers Hyderabad Impact Subs: Umran Malik, Glenn Phillips, Mayank Markande, Abdul Samad, Washington Sundar
Kolkata Knight Riders Impact Subs: Anukul Roy, Manish Pandey, Nitish Rana, KS Bharat, Sherfaine Rutherford.