IPL 2018 | Shubman Gill earns praise from Piyush Chawla after proving his worth against CSK
Piyush Chawla has expressed his happiness after Shubman Gill lived up to the giant faith that he had put on him during the Kolkata Knight Riders camp last month. The young batsman scored an unbeaten 57 that was a game changer to turn the odds in the favour of the Kolkata-based franchise.
Chennai Super Kings had set a target of 178 runs for Kolkata Knight Riders to chase, which they did so very effectively at the arrival of Gill. With the early dismissals of Chris Lynn and Robin Uthappa, things were looking glum for the hosts and once Rinku Singh was taken out, Gill was deployed to take the centre stage where he and Dinesh Karthik for company.
The duo still had to chase 81 runs from 50 balls to take the team down the line and this was the challenge posed amidst the constant attack from the bowling duo comprising Dwayne Bravo and Harbhajan Singh. But, Gill remained undented by that and scored a quick-fire half-century from 32 balls with six fours, three of these in the first over he faced. After the special innings, Piyush Chawla stated that he called Gill a “special talent” in the KKR camp and as a testament to his word, the India U-19 opener proved himself with his performance against CSK.
"Before the start of the matches, during our camp...I had said that he is a special talent. Today he proved it. Nitish was injured and he was doing well for us. We needed somebody who can graft the innings and he did exactly the same, what the team demanded from him," Chawla said when asked on why Gill was pushed up from No.7 to No.4. "Batting at No.7, I guess if you see the team combination, it's a team game so team comes first," Chawla said at the post-match press conference after their victory against Chennai Super Kings.
The bowling attack of the KKR is also one to be feared with players like Sunil Narine, Kuldeep Yadav, and Piyush Chawla himself. They had already set the stage for their batting line up by pressurizing the CSK batsmen in the middle overs. Kuldeep, Narine, and Chawla bowled the 18th, 19th, and 20th overs respectively in the first innings, which meant CSK couldn’t go past the 200-run mark.
"We have three spinners who have played at the highest level and have done well. It was a team thought that we might go with the spinners in the slog overs and we ended up quite well bowling with spinners in the 18th, 19th and 20 over," said Chawla.
"Previously we had Sunil, myself and Shakib (Al Hasan). Kuldeep has come in and is filling up the boots of Shakib. He is doing really well and as I said, wrist spinner plays a big role in this format and we are lucky to have two wrist spinners and the way Sunil bowls, the whole world knows that."
KKR are set to take on the Mumbai Indians at their home ground and have another match back at home against the same team. With 10 points, KKR are placed at the third position currently and Chawla believes that they can still go to the top of the points table.
"T20 is a kind of format where no team is easy. If you see Mumbai Indians they have proved it in the IPL. They are at the bottom of the table right now but these kind of teams are even more dangerous. So we have to play good cricket to come on top,” the leggie said.
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