As the Kolkata Knight Riders kicked off their IPL 2024 campaign against Sunrisers Hyderabad on Saturday, Harshit Rana, who is in his third season with the team, provided evidence for his selection. With an incredible delivery, the 22-year-old showed off his talent by getting rid of SRH opener Mayank Agarwal.
Mayank Agarwal is silenced by Harshit Rana
Mayank attempted to pull the bouncer that Rana sent in the third delivery of the sixth over, but he was only able to direct it to the fielder at deep backward square leg for a catch. Rana celebrated by sending a farewell flying kiss to a departing Mayank. The Indian batter took one look at the bowler and turned to walk away. Mayank finished the SRH 209-run chase with 32 off 21 balls.
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Sunil Gavaskar did not take kindly to Harshit’s celebration. According to the legend from India, “He should not have done that. When he was hitting him for sixes, did the batsman do anything to help him? These kinds of antics are not necessary to play cricket. This is the television era. I recognize that. Join in the celebration with your teammates, but the opposition does not need to engage in such behavior.”
The captain of SRH, Pat Cummins, initially chose to bowl after winning the toss. In the first innings, KKR got off to a shaky start and lost wickets quickly. Even though Phil Salt was in fine form as the opener, SRH easily removed Sunil Narine (2), Venkatesh Iyer (7), Shreyas Iyer (0), and Nitish Rana (9) without much help from the wicketkeeper.
When Ramandeep Singh entered the game, KKR was floundering at 51/4 in 7.3 overs. Ramandeep scored 35 runs in just 17 deliveries. After Ramandeep was removed, Salt was bowled out for 54 of 40 balls.
Andre Russell and Rinku Singh led a late comeback, but they were left to close out the innings. Before getting out of the last over, Rinku hit 23 off of 15 balls. Russell, meanwhile, continued to be unbeaten after hitting 64 runs off of 25 balls, including three fours and seven sixes.
In a post-first-inning statement, Salt said, “Funny how this game works; I am really happy to be with such an amazing franchise, and I hope we get our first points tonight.” The ball was slightly sticky when it was new; as it gets older, the ball becomes slightly less sticky. We hope our seamers can do something similar, as the top and back of the stumps (of varying length) are quite intricate. I am just glad that I can go there and perform well for the team in front of such a large audience.”
Things are heated between Harshit Rana and Mayank Agarwal.#KKRvSRH #KKRvsSRH #SRHvsKKR pic.twitter.com/QVNhhnHHAd
— Sachin Kumar Vishwakarma (@apnasachinkumar) March 23, 2024
STORY FROM HINDUSTHAN TIMES , HCP TEAM RE-WRITE AND PUBLISH
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