Vaibhav Arora couldn’t have hoped for a better impact when he came in as the Kolkata Knight Riders’ Impact Player for Angkrish Raghuvanshi at the Eden on Thursday.
Yes, shot selection from Sunrisers Hyderabad batters was poor to a certain extent. But credit has to be given to Vaibhav for making fine use of the dry pitch and making
sure the Sunrisers never recovered following the early jolts he gave them with the scalps of Travis Head and Ishan Kishan.
“I see what the ball is doing, how much it is swinging while I’m outside (the playing arena). As the game progresses, the ball does not swing, so I developed cutters and yorkers as cricket has changed with power-hitters going after bowlers,” Man of the Match Vaibhav said about his way of operation.
“Cutters and yorkers are important when there’s no swing. We plan in meetings on what to bowl to which batter, and the lines and lengths get adjusted accordingly.”
Captain Ajinkya Rahane, on the other hand, was all praise for his deputy Venkatesh Iyer and Rinku Singh for their massive 91-run fifth-wicket partnership.
“It has been a great example for us as a batting group to learn from this game. When Rinku and Venkatesh were batting, it was about getting 50-60 runs in the last 30 balls.
“It was all about playing it normal for the first 15 overs and then taking it on. Initially, we thought 170-180 would be a good total on this wicket, but we got extra, thanks to the Rinku-Venkatesh partnership,” Rahane emphasised.
