IPL 2019 | Bowlers didn’t bowl badly, but Russell thrashed them, says Rashid Khan

03/25/2019

After opening their IPL campaign with a six-wicket defeat against Kolkata Knight Riders, Rashid Khan has stated that the Sunrisers Hyderabad bowlers didn’t bowl badly but Andre Russell took them to the stands anyway. Batting first, SRH had posted a decent target of 182 runs at the Eden Gardens.

KKR were visibly struggling against the best bowling side in the league on Sunday as they sat on 114/3 at the end of the 15th over with 68 runs needed from 30 balls. And with Khan having one more over remaining, the window was closing fast. While the momentum looked to be with an in-from Nitish Rana, the floodlight failure seriously hampered it after the first two balls of the 16th over.

Though Russell took Khan to the ropes on the last ball of his fourth over, KKR had an uphill task ahead with death-over specialist Bhuvneshwar Kumar yet to bowl two overs. And the fast bowler did well to conceded just 16 runs in the 17th over leaving KKR to garner 53 runs off the last 18 balls. This looked like the only chance for the hosts to capitalize as Siddharth Kaul and Shakib-al-Hasan had an over left each with Russell just getting the hang of things.

Kaul gave away 18 runs in the next over letting Russell smell blood, which allowed Russell to go after Kumar in the penultimate over to smash a whopping 21 runs. The match was over then and there with KKR seeing young Shubman Gill hitting two sixes off Shakib to finish things. On a bowling pitch like the Eden Gardens, SRH were expected to defend a target of 182 quite easily and Khan felt that his teammates hardly put a foot wrong but Russell hit every delivery out of the park in his 19-ball-49 knock.

“Russell played a great knock. He took the game away from us. He played all the shots, the bowlers did not bowl bad deliveries but he just smashed them,” Khan said at the post-match press conference, reported Indian Express.

“180-plus was a good total. Usually, at Eden, 170 plus is a good total and can be defended. The bowling line up that we have, it was not like we scored less or batted badly. We just could not finish well and that happens,” he added.

The runners-up from last year will be facing Rajasthan Royals in their next match on Friday and Khan asked his teammates to learn from their mistakes and return stronger against Ajinkya Rahane and Co.

“It’s just the start of the tournament. We did really well in our department. We just couldn’t finish well in the last three overs and that happens in T20 cricket. Hopefully, we will try and not repeat the same mistakes and go back stronger and play well at home next,” said Khan.

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IPL 2019 | Bowlers didn’t bowl badly, but Russell thrashed them, says Rashid Khan

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