‘Umesh bhaiya told me, hit it, Rinku, don’t think’

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By Webdesk


“To be honest, I didn’t think much. I just reacted to every ball,” Rinku said during the post-match presentation. “I never thought I would hit five sixes. I kept hitting. I had the faith. And we won the game.”

Rinku finished unbeaten on 48 from 21 deliveries, with 40 coming from the last seven balls he faced.

“I had the inner conviction that I could do it because I had also played [a similar] innings last year against Lucknow [Super Giants]. I also had such faith there and today I have also shown that faith. Rana bhai told me, “Believe Rakhiyo, play to the end (Keep the faith, stay to the end),’ he said.

Umesh had similar words for Rinku as he passed the bat to the 25-year-old left-handed batter. “Brother also told me,Laga Rinku, sochiyo mate (hit it, don’t think).”

Making this comeback all the more stunning was the background in which it came about. Venkatesh Iyer had set up the Knight Riders chase with his 40-ball 83, but he fell to Alzarri Joseph in the 16th over. Rashid Khan got a hat-trick in the next over: Andre Russell fell for 1, and Sunil Narine and Shardul Thakur both fell for first-ball ducks.

“You see, when we were bowling, we did well,” Rana said. “It was only the last two overs [where they gave away 45runs]. After bowling 18 good overs, we had two bad overs. The same thing happened while we were batting with the Rashid Khan, which completely confused us. But the credit goes to Rinku Singh. If we have two points today, it’s all because of Rinku Singh.

“People have been asking me why Rinku Singh doesn’t make the top rankings and always plays minor roles or secondary roles. Today I would like to say that if this is a secondary role, you can imagine what primary role he can play.”. And how important a player Rinku Singh is to me. In the last game we saw that it was important to hold one way and keep batting and he did and today… If I was batting I might have thought I could chase it but in your heart you know what you are capable of and what you cannot. I have no words to describe Rinku’s innings.

The reason Knight Riders even believed in the impossible was that they had (almost) seen the same man do it once before. “Rinku had done it last year too, although we didn’t win the game then. But when he got the second six [against Titans]faith increased. Because Yash Dayal was not able to execute, so somehow I did believe it,” Rana said. a hundred games, that’s how you win one.”

Venkatesh said the win against the defending champions was a valuable lesson – not to give up until the last ball. “It was a blood-curdling finish and I’m really happy with the way we won the game. Our coach [Chandrakant Pandit] has always maintained that we can score 200 on any given day. We saw that in the last game where only three players scored in double digits and yet we scored 200 and today was another example that our team will never give up and we can score 200 on any given day.

“Obviously if the target is 200 you can’t have silent overs. You need boundaries and the momentum to go ahead. Nitish and I had a nice little partnership (100 from 55 for the third wicket) and that set the tone Unfortunately somewhere towards the end we lost our way but Lord Rinku rescued us again.

“To be honest, we still believed we could win from here (Rashid’s hat-trick). He’s clearly a world class bowler and he did what he did all these years. We still believed because Rinku was there. We felt that we could still win this if we overplayed this, in three overs we could chase anything. That’s exactly what happened. This teaches us a lesson that we should never give up until the last ball.”



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