Knight Riders to take on spirited Sunrisers in high-stakes IPL final

Tactician par excellence Gautam Gambhir couldn’t have envisaged a battle of brains with a more different kind of adversary than the smiling yet ruthless Pat Cummins as Kolkata Knight Riders face a spirited Sunrisers Hyderabad in a mega IPL final here on Sunday.

Marquee sporting clashes always pit one leader against another but this IPL final will be about Gambhir’s brain, which is always ticking against a captain who has transcended boundaries to turn into a leader of men.

Somewhere along the line, KKR’s Shreyas Iyer, who is playing his second final as captain, has turned into bit of a sideshow as a global cricketing royalty in Cummins faces an IPL czar in Gambhir.

A decade ago, no one would have placed a bet on Cummins being a captain and winning the ODI World Cup, World Test Championship and Ashes in a space of six months, and now, leading SRH to their maiden IPL title would be the icing on the cake.