Kolkata Knight Riders’s Sunil Narine, proper, have fun along with his teammates the dismissal of Gujarat Titan’s Shubman Gill throughout the Indian Premier League (IPL) match between Gujarat Titans and Kolkata Knight Riders in Ahmedabad, India, on April 9, 2023.
| Photo Credit: AP
Rinku Singh’s beautiful remaining over onslaught which handed Kolkata Knight Riders an unlikely win in opposition to Gujarat Titans on Sunday earned him a brand new moniker “lord” from his teammate Venkatesh Iyer, who himself slammed a 40-ball 83.
The 25-year-old was at his brutal finest, slamming 5 consecutive sixes in the final over en route an unbeaten 48 from 21 balls as KKR snatched a miraculous three-wicket win from the jaws of defeat in opposition to Gujarat Titans, for whom stand-in captain Rashid Khan recorded the first hat-trick of IPL 2023.
“It was a nail-biting finish, extremely happy that we won the game. Our coach has always said that we can score 200 on any given day. Honestly, the wicket was quite good to bat. When the target is 200, you can’t have silent overs. I was just trying to execute my plans,” Iyer stated after the match.
“Me and Nitish had a good partnership. Unfortunately, somewhere we lost our way but Lord Rinku saved the day. To be honest, we still believed that we could win. This teaches us that we should never give up until the last ball.” Iyer stated the victory can be a “great morale-booster” for the crew.
“We want to make winning a habit. I haven’t been in great form. Tonight, I went out and played as late as possible. The bowlers were quick and I tried to use their pace, and that worked to my advantage,” stated Iyer, speaking about his 55-ball 100-run stand with KKR skipper Nitish Rana (45) for the third wicket.
Gujarat Titans’ stand-in skipper Rashid additionally praised Rinku for taking part in an impressive innings when all odds have been stacked in opposition to his facet.
Rinku got here in when KKR wanted 56 off 30 balls, however Rashid’s hat-trick nearly sealed the sport in the favour of Gujarat Titans.
However, the left-handed batter didn’t surrender, hitting 5 sixes off as many balls from Yash Dayal in the remaining over after hitting Josh Little for a six and a 4 in the remaining two deliveries of the penultimate over.
“It’s a tough game for us, especially for me as a captain. You need 30 plus in the last over, the same thing happened for us last year when we won. We will learn from it, more importantly a good game of cricket and the fans would have loved it. It was more about what he is most comfortable with, to trust his (Yash Dayal) plans,” Rashid stated.
“Rinku played unbelievable shots and credit goes to him for the way he played and for the way he finished. Keep it simple, hit the right area consistently and that’s what T20 is all about.” Rashid stated at occasions even scores of 250 are usually not secure along with his facet shedding the sport on Sunday night having scored 204/4 batting first.
“As a bowler I’m always trying to hit the right area. We got what we wanted. We wanted 190 and we got 200.
“As a bowling unit we got enough to defend, but sometimes in T20 even 250 does not look good. Take positives from this, it’s still early in the competition and learn from it,” he stated.
Teams:
Gujarat Titans: Shubman Gill, Wriddhiman Saha (wk), Sai Sudharsan, Vijay Shankar, David Miller, Rahul Tewatia, Rashid Khan (c) Alzarri Joseph, Josh Little, Yash Dayal, Mohammed Shami.
Kolkata Knight Riders: Rahmanullah Gurbaz (wk), Nitish Rana (c), N Jagadeesan, Rinku Singh, Andre Russell, Shardul Thakur, Sunil Narine, Lockie Ferguson, Umesh Yadav, Suyash Sharma, Varun Chakravarthy.
