Uncapped leg-spinner Suyash Sharma was the star of Kolkata Knight Riders' (KKR) massive 81-run victory over Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) on Thursday in the ongoing IPL 2023. Suyash, who hasn’t played any FC, List-A, or T20 professional match, picked 3 scalps on his debut.
Earlier, RCB captain Faf du Plessis won the toss and chose to bowl first and reduced KKR to 89/5 with Rahmanullah Gurbaz making 57. However, they recovered miraculously as Rinku Singh (46) and fiery innings from Shardul Thakur (68 in 29) took them to 204/7.
RCB had no answer to the brilliant trio of KKR spinners of Varun Chakravarthy, Sunil Narine, and Suyash Sharma, as they were routed for 123 in chase of a 205-run target. Faf du Plessis (23) and Virat Kohli (21) were the notable scorers as Narine picked 2/16 and Varun took 4/15, apart from Suyash’s 3.
KKR skipper Nitish Rana doesn't seem to agree with the 'mystery spinner tag' for young Suyash, saying he is a normal leg-break bowler but with an 'x-factor'.
"Suyash is no mystery spinner. He is a normal leg-spinner. But he has an X-factor because of his very high arm speed with orthodox action, so it's very difficult to pick him. He's also very quick through the air. You will be in trouble 100 percent if there's a little bit of doubt while batting against him. He will improve game by game," Rana said at the post-match media interaction.
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Playing in front of a capacity crowd of about 67,000, Suyash looked confident after replacing Venkatesh Iyer as an impact player.
"I knew Suyash would do well but I wanted to bring in Sunil in the Powerplay and then Varun and both of them gave breakthroughs. It was very important to take wickets in the middle. Varun comeback was very important for us. He didn't perform well last season, but he is bowling well this time,” Rana added.
Nitish Rana was also praiseful of the impactful knock by Shardul Thakur. He also talked about the incredibly important innings by Rinku Singh, who supported Shardul well in their 103-run partnership for the 6th wicket.
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"I was always confident of his (Shardul Thakur) batting ability as an impact player but his stroke-making exceeded my expectations. If your all-rounder bats in such a way, and turns around the game single-handedly, what else does a captain want?
"His innings were very important. I'm pretty close to him so I was telling him to stay till 19-20th over. I knew he can hit sixes in any ball. He's a bindaas (carefree) person and keeps everything simple without complicating it. Our first objective is to win every match,” Rana said.
KKR will next travel to Ahmedabad to play Gujarat Titans on April 9, while RCB will play Lucknow Super Giants at home on April 10.
(PTI inputs)
