Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) skipper Shreyas Iyer on Wednesday (6th April) lauded Pat Cummins for his ‘extraordinary’ innings against Mumbai Indians (MI) in Match 14 of Indian Premier League (IPL) 2022, saying that he can’t believe the way the Australian Test captain batted.
KKR thumped MI by 5 wickets to register their third win of the season. Bowling first, after winning the toss, the Shreyas Iyer-led side restricted five-time champions to a total of 161 runs. Umesh Yadav was the standout bowler for his side as he conceded only 25 runs and took the important wicket of Rohit Sharma (3).
Chasing the target, KKR didn’t have a great start with the bat as they lost opener Ajinkya Rahane (7) and skipper Iyer (10) inside the power play. After that, they kept losing wickets at regular intervals and were tottering at 101/5 with opener Venkatesh Iyer stranded at one end.
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Iyer, who scored unbeaten 50 runs, was then joined by Pat Cummins. The Australian Test skipper came out all guns blazing and smashed the joint-fastest fifty in the history of IPL in 14 balls. He smashed 35 runs in Daniel Sams’ over to finish the match for his side with 4 overs to spare. The right-hander remained unbeaten on 56 runs off 15 balls to lead his side to a five-wicket win and take them to the top of the points table.
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Speaking at the post-match presentation, Shreyas Iyer lauded Pat Cummins’ ‘extraordinary’ innings with the bat. He said that he couldn’t believe that the pacer hit the ball that well because he was getting bowled in the nets.
“Extraordinary! I couldn’t believe the way he (Cummins) was hitting the ball. Because yesterday in the nets, he was getting bowled now and then. I was batting in the nets beside him then. During the timeout, the plan was for Venky to drop anchor and tell Pat to just swing at everything because that’s what he was doing before too,” Shreyas Iyer said.
Iyer said that as a top-order his side needs to take responsibility. He also talked about the pitch and remarked that it became easier after the power play.
“When I went in to bat, I told him to just time the ball. Because he was overhitting the ball a bit. We have to take responsibility as top-order batters. All of us have the ability to hit the ball long. In the powerplay in both innings, the pitch was quite the same. After the powerplay, it got a lot easier I guess,” he said.
Kolkata Knight Riders will next face Delhi Capitals at Mumbai’s Brabourne Stadium on Sunday (10th April) in the afternoon encounter.
(ANI inputs)
