Kolkata Knight Riders won their opening match of the new IPL season by 4 runs against Sunrisers Hyderabad on Wednesday, thanks to spectacular performances from Andre Russell with the bat and Harshit Rana and Sunil Narine with the ball.
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In Saturday’s crucial encounter, KKR posted a total of 208 runs in their 20 overs and later restricted Sunrisers to 204 despite some great knocks from the likes of Heinrich Klaasen and Shahbaz Ahmed.
However, it wasn’t always going to be easy for KKR. In particular, the Kolkata franchise were reduced to 105 for the loss of 5 wickets in the 13th over when a special innings from Andre Russel changed the complexion of the match.
Russel smashed 64 runs off just 25 deliveries with 7 sixes and three boundaries to put KKR in a strong position along with left-handed batsman Rinku Singh. Soon after Russel’s knock, some social media users started speculating that Gautam Gambhir had a role to play in the selection of Andre Russel after an average season as a batsman last season.
Notably, Gautam Gambhir has returned to the KKR set-up for the first time after leaving the franchise as a player in 2017. In his time as captain, Gambhir had helped KKR win 2 IPL trophies in 2012 and 2014. Former India cricketer Sunil Gavaskar, however, warned against drawing any premature conclusions from Russell’s innings.
In an interaction with Star Sports, Gavaskar said, “Let’s not go ahead of ourselves. He batted well, and it’s got nothing to do with anyone coming into there (KKR). If he doesn’t do well in the next few innings, will you blame Gautam Gambhir? Let’s take it a little bit easy,” Gavaskar told Star Sports.
“When you saw someone like Bhuveneshwar Kumar, who was practising his yorkers so well on the practise pitches, bowled leg-deliveries (in the match) which was everything in the arc for Andre Russell… When somebody like Russell is hitting the ball into the stands, nobody can stop him,” the former Indian batter added.
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Published: 24 Mar 2024, 01:32 PM IST
