Knights will be champions!

The Kolkata Knight Riders stormed into the IPL17 final with the most wins nine and least defeats three as compared to the other nine teams and it is this dominance that has made them the favourites to win the prestigious competition Former England cricketer and exRajasthan Royals player Graeme Swann believes KKR are favourites to win Sundayrsquos final at Chennairsquos MA Chidambaram Stadium as ldquothey have all the areas coveredrdquoGautam Gambhir factorldquoKKR are the ones who will lift the trophy in the final from what I can see as they have all the areas coveredmdashbe it batting bowling or fielding They have dominated this season of IPL and with Gautam Gambhir as their head coach mentor they are the bestrdquo Swann told IANS At the Narendra Modi Stadium on Tuesday after dismissing Head with a sharp incoming delivery on the second ball of the Qualifier 1 KKR speedster Mitchell Starc proceeded to take out Nitish Kumar Reddy and Shahbaz Ahmed off consecutive deliveries in the fifth over bringing the Sunrisers Hyderabad to their kneesGraeme Swann Brett Lee amp T DilshanThe Australian pacer with his 334 was named Player of the Match and Swann felt all other teams will be wary of an inform Starc who knows how to handle the pressure in finals ldquoHe Starc is back in form and itrsquos kind of a threat to other teams whoever reaches the final This guy knows how to handle the pressure of big matches as he has played a lot in that situation and will be deadly The best thing about him is the raw pace that he has and with the one coming into the stumps he can beat any batter in the world We have already seen what he did to his teammate Travis Head who is in the form of his life this season So my advice to other teams is to play cautiously against Starc and try to cut off his swing by charging on the ballrdquo added SwannInform Starc a threatStarcrsquos former Australian teammate and fellow pace ace Brett Lee also picked KKR to win the final ldquoI picked RCB Royal Challengers Bengaluru right from the top and I was disappointed when they got knocked out in the Eliminator But if you look on paper and on current form it will be tough to beat KKR I think theyrsquore probably the team that deserves to finish at the number one position Theyrsquore straight through the final on Sunday so theyrsquoll be pretty hard to beatrdquo Lee told ANIFormer Sri Lanka captain Tillakaratne Dilshan also handed it to KKR for their sheer consistency though he felt Rajasthan Royals have done well too ldquoI think KKR have been consistently performing and doing well throughout the tournament RR played very good cricket too but around halfway through they were a bit up and down KKR though have been doing consistently well and performing in all three departments bowling batting and fielding I think KKR are going to win this IPLrdquo said DilshanThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever