The stage is set for a clash of wits between two fiercely competitive but contrasting characters in Gautam Gambhir and Pat Cummins as the Kolkata Knight Riders chase a third Indian Premier League (IPL) crown against the unpredictable 2016 champions Sunrisers Hyderabad at the MA Chidambaram Stadium in Chennai on Sunday.

Both Gambhir and Cummins have been handed over the reins of their respective sides ahead of this season after both teams endured mid-table finishes over the past few seasons.

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For Cummins, who has his hands full after leading Australia to the World Test Championship title, the 2023 ODI World Cup and the Ashes in a space of six months, the IPL crown will be the icing on the cake for the pacer, who is leading a T20 franchise for the first time in his career.

“A very practical guy, very humble, very empathetic to his fellow teammates and coaching staff. He is into the statistics and gets the information that he needs against a particular opposition in certain conditions,” SRH assistant coach Simon Helmot described the skipper in a nutshell after the team’s win against Rajasthan Royals in the second qualifier on Friday.

“He doesn’t waste time in (team) meetings. Our team meeting today was 35 seconds. But, a lot of information has already been spoken about,” he said.

On Sunday, going by popular sentiment, the KKR side will enter as the favourites but one can’t discount the Australian cricketers in big-ticket finals, with the hero of the ODI World Cup final — Travis Head in red-hot form for the Sunrisers, and Cummins with his fondness to “silence the crowd”.

Amidst the captivating duel between Cummins and Gambhir, KKR’s captain Shreyas Iyer finds himself under the shadows of the KKR mentor, but the Mumbai cricketer will have his reasons to win the trophy after being dropped from the BCCI’s annual central contracts ahead of the IPL. Winning the IPL crowd could bolster his chances of winning back his lost pride.

The two teams met in the first qualifier in which KKR outsmarted SRH with clever bowling plans on a massive Motera ground and in Chennai, SRH carried out a similar heist to outwit the Rajasthan Royals on Friday. As such, it promises to be another exciting battle on the cards.

The last time KKR played an IPL final in Chennai, it was against the home side — Chennai Super Kings in 2012 under Gambhir, who also knows a bit to silence a vociferous crowd. He went on to lead KKR to a second crown in 2014, and with a bigger prize in the India head coach’s position awaiting, taking the KKR to a third crown will also bolster his chances to prove himself before the Cricket Advisory Committee.

One look at the overall team compositions, the KKR side finds all their bases covered with Sunil Narine, Andre Russell, Rinku Singh, the two Iyers — Shreyas and Venkatesh — the two Ranas — Nitish and Harshit — and spinner Varun Chakravarthy in their ranks.

The SRH, on the other hand, will take a lot of positives from their Friday night’s show, especially from the bowling perspective with their part-time spin options in Abhishek Sharma and Shahbaz Ahmed effectively taking the Royals out of the game.

Abhishek will also be expected to fire with the bat along with Head — a luxury that the SRH still can boast in contrast to KKR after the departure of Englishman Phil Salt, back for national duty. Head and Heinrich Klaasen did get runs on a tricky surface but the likes of Abhishek, Rahul Tripathi and Nitish Reddy would need to raise their hands for SRH to lift the title.

On a track where taking the pace off deliveries will be the key, young KKR pacers Harshit and Vaibhav Arora will have to think out of the box against Head, who has so far amassed 567 runs.

Another interesting aspect of the IPL final is that the match features no member from India’s main T20 World Cup squad. The only Indian player associated with the final will be Rinku Singh, who is in the travelling reserves.