An election sends the IPL to the desert
The seventh season had a scheduling problem no franchise could solve. The 2014 general election ran through April and May, and Union Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde told the BCCI the government could not spare security for the tournament while the country voted. So the IPL packed up. The opening twenty matches were played in the United Arab Emirates, at Abu Dhabi, Dubai and Sharjah, between 16 April and 30 April. The league returned to India on 2 May and finished at the M. Chinnaswamy Stadium on 1 June. Even after the return, one Kolkata home match was shifted to Cuttack because Eden Gardens could not be secured during polling.
Eight teams instead of nine, Pune Warriors having withdrawn. The auction that February was the first conducted in rupees, and every squad had been rebuilt around a maximum of five retentions.
Kings XI Punjab, at last
The desert leg belonged to Kings XI Punjab and Glenn Maxwell. Punjab won six of their first seven, Maxwell hitting through the line on flat UAE pitches with a freedom nobody could bowl to. They finished top of the table with eleven wins from fourteen. Virender Sehwag then produced the innings of his IPL career in Qualifier 2 at the Wankhede, 122 from 58 balls to knock out Chennai Super Kings.
Kolkata Knight Riders were the counterweight. They were fourth from bottom in early May, having lost five of seven. Then they won nine matches in a row, the last of them the final. Robin Uthappa scored 660 runs and took the Orange Cap, opening in every match Kolkata played. Yusuf Pathan hit the fastest half-century in IPL history, 15 balls, to take Kolkata into Qualifier 1 with the required run rate in mind. Mohit Sharma of Chennai finished with the Purple Cap and 23 wickets. Maxwell was player of the series.
Saha's hundred, and Pandey's answer
The final in Bangalore is the one people still bring up. Wriddhiman Saha, a Test wicketkeeper picked for that job and not this one, made 115 not out off 55 balls, the first century ever scored in an IPL final. Punjab put up 199 for 4. It should have been enough.
Manish Pandey made 94 from 50, Kolkata lost wickets around him and still got there with three balls to spare, 200 for 7. Pandey took the man of the match award; Saha's hundred went into the losing column, which is the sort of thing this tournament does. Gautam Gambhir lifted his second IPL trophy in three years.
What it settled
The UAE leg proved something the BCCI would use again in 2020 and 2021, that the IPL could be moved out of India entirely and still work commercially. For Kings XI Punjab it was a first final, reached with a squad that had finished sixth the year before. For Kolkata it confirmed a template, an unglamorous side built on Narine, Uthappa and a strong middle, winning from a position nobody would have backed in early May.