Kolkata Knight Riders mystery spinner Varun Chakravarthy lauded Ajinkya Rahane’s captaincy after they clinched a thumping 80-run win against Sunrisers Hyderabad at the Eden Gardens, Kolkata on Thursday.
Rahane played a crucial knock of 38 runs and added 81 runs with youngster Angkrish Raghuvanshi for the third wicket after KKR lost both of their openers – Quinton de Kock and Sunil Narine – cheaply.
Rahane was then spot on with his field placement and bowling changes as SRH was skittled out for a paltry score of 120 runs.
On the other hand, Chakravarthy played a key role in the comprehensive win as he returned with impressive figures of 3-22 in his quota of four overs. The 33-year-old accounted for Aniket Verma, Pat Cummins, and Simarjeet Singh.
Chakravarthy said after the win, “Rahane is captaining us for the first time, he hasn’t played a lot with us and he was on the mark today, we didn’t want to leave it to the other bowlers, take it deep and leave it to Russell in the end, he’s our best death bowler.”
Meanwhile, Vaibhav Arora bagged 3-29 in his four overs, including a maiden. The right-arm swing bowler got the big wickets of Travis Head, Ishan Kishan, and Heinrich Klaasen. On the other hand, Angkrish Raghuvanshi scored 50 runs off 32 balls and Chakravarthy showered praise on both players.
He added, “It was a very good inning by Angkrish, the way Venky took it deep and Rinku finished it. I thought we were 10 over par and I felt we could defend this. Vaibhav was outstanding, all the wickets he took were important and I was pleased for him.”
Chakravarthy revealed the batting plan after suffering a heavy loss against Mumbai Indians.
He concluded, “Last two days were tough for us, we were badly defeated in the last game, so the talk was to go go and stay out on the pitch, accumulate runs and then score quickly at the end.”
Kolkata Knight Riders will next take on Lucknow Super Giants at the Eden Gardens, Kolkata on Tuesday.
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