Stand-in captain Ishan Kishan was impressed with Shivang Kumar’s performance on Thursday. The left-arm wristspinner made his IPL debut at Eden Gardens in Kolkata, and justified his selection as Sunrisers Hyderabad won by 65 runs. He was key in the second innings, as it was his delivery that saw Rinku Singh and Angkrish Raghuvanshi get involved in a huge mix-up, and the latter lost his wicket in the resulting runout in the non-striker’s end. It was a big wicket as Raghuvanshi departed for 52 off 29 balls, with Kolkata stuck at 120/4 in 10.6 overs, as they chased 227 runs.
The 23-year-old did concede 41 runs in four overs and ended his day with an economy rate of 10.25, but Kishan pointed out that it didn’t matter. According to Kishan, although Rinku Singh smacked Shivang for a lot of boundaries, the young bowler showed ‘heart’ with his deliveries.
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‘He was bowling with a big heart’: Ishan Kishan
Speaking in the post-match ceremony, Kishan said, “But I would love to talk about Shivang today because, you know, coming here, playing against KKR, not so big ground, good wicket in the second innings, and, you know, he bowled exceptionally well, I feel. So, that is something, you know, his hard work paid off. He was working a lot.”
“He was in touch with all the coaches. He was trying to understand how this game works here. And, you know, you can see how he was bowling with a big heart against Rinku, bowling those flighted balls. So, that is something you always want to see from a young bowler who comes in the team, and he did the job for us,” he added.
Raghuvanshi’s dismissal was a huge turning point in the match as he was building a partnership with Rinku. The wicket completely shifted the tide in SRH’s favour, as before that, it looked like KKR were still in the game.
In the first innings, Heinrich Klaasen was in dominant form, smacking 52 runs off 35 balls as SRH got to 226/8 in 20 overs. Meanwhile, Abhishek Sharma (48) and Travis Head (46) missed out on half-centuries. For KKR’s bowling department, Blessing Muzarabani got a four-wicket haul. Chasing a target of 227 runs, KKR were bowled out for 161 in 16 overs, with Jaydev Unadkat taking three wickets for SRH.
