IPL 2018 | Washington Sundar heaps praise on young Afghan leggie Mujeeb Ur Rahman

There is something special about the IPL every year as it gives an opportunity to some unknown extraordinary talents to rub shoulders with quality players. The story is repeating this time also as two young leg spinners - Mayank Markande from Mumbai Indians and Mujeeb Ur Rahman from Kings XI Punjab - have already scalped some prize wickets like MS Dhoni and Virat Kohli forcing cricket pundits for a recognition of their art. Friday’s match between RCB and KXIP, which RCB won by 4 wickets, had become the talking point more because of Kohli being castled by a googly bowled by Rahman. 

Talking about the brilliance of the young 17-year-old spinner, Washington Sundar, in his post-match presser, said, “I think it is pretty amazing, to be honest, to be able to bowl with a lot of variations at this age, you need to give a lot of credit to him. He bowls googlies, he bowls the off-spinner, he bowls carrom ball as well. It is not that easy to read him or pick him from his finger but as we play a lot of games against him, everyone will be ok against him,” reported Wisden India.

Yesterday’s match was kind of a different experience for Sundar. Having bowled most of his overs during the power play and grabbing eyeballs after the Nidahas Trophy where he got the man of the series award, Kohli threw the ball to him after 10 overs knowing the fact that the bowler didn't perform well against Kolkata Knight Riders in their first match. The offie didn’t disappoint his captain as well and managed to dismiss KL Rahul and finished his quota with 2 for 22.

“As a spinner, you need to be open to bowling in different scenarios, our fast bowlers bowled a lot in the first six overs especially and I had to bowl after 10 overs. It was a different challenge and the way I bowled, I was pretty happy about it.”

Everyone was keenly looking forward to knowing how Chinnaswamy stadium would offer its goodness for batsmen. Last year it was difficult to score runs as the ball was not coming to bat properly which resulted in a heavy batting line up like RCB could only win one home match. However, now, it seems like the curator has successfully managed to get the track back to its original condition that Chinnaswamy was perennially known for.

“The wicket was good, it was a 165-170 wicket, we bowled well. Umesh’s second over was pretty crucial for us. Even they bowled really well, the first 12 overs especially. After that, they had to use a lot of fast bowling and we were getting runs. It was a good game of cricket, it was a very competitive wicket as well; we bowled very well to reduce them (below the par score) by 10-15 runs. I don’t think it was like last year. Bowlers were also able to get some purchase, and it was good for batting as well.”