Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) bounced back to winning ways in perfect style after Andre Russell muscled eight sixes in his unbeaten 31-ball 70 to help the two-time Indian Premier League (IPL) champions to a six wicket win at the Wankhede Stadium against Punjab Kings. Following the win, former India all-rounder Irfan Pathan reserved the highest praise for KKR captain Shreyas Iyer.
After Umesh Yadav's first-over wicket of Mayank Agarwal, Punjab Kings, who were put to bat first, threatened to steer away riding on a 9-ball 31 from Bhanuka Rajapaksa, before wickets in regular interval pegged back PBKS as Kolkata managed to fold the power-packed batting line-up for just 137.
Irfan Pathan was mighty impressed with Shreyas' captaincy in the PBKS game as he hailed the India youngster for his tactic of keeping the Punjab batters on their toes and for “manoeuvring the bowlers well” to keep the pressure on.
“Very very impressive because when he started captaincy in 2018 for Delhi, he was very young and very raw. Now he has got the confidence. What he has started to do is...like here when the game was starting to go away early on, Punjab started really well and they were aggressive from the start. Rajapaksa scored 9-ball 31. But Iyer called Umesh, then Mavi came - got hit for runs and then took a wicket, and then he called Varun Chakravarthy. He wanted to press the game even more harder against PBKS,” he said on Star Sports after KKR's win.
{{/usCountry}}“Very very impressive because when he started captaincy in 2018 for Delhi, he was very young and very raw. Now he has got the confidence. What he has started to do is...like here when the game was starting to go away early on, Punjab started really well and they were aggressive from the start. Rajapaksa scored 9-ball 31. But Iyer called Umesh, then Mavi came - got hit for runs and then took a wicket, and then he called Varun Chakravarthy. He wanted to press the game even more harder against PBKS,” he said on Star Sports after KKR's win.
{{/usCountry}}“Then the ninth over was the key when he called Umesh and he got the wicket of Lima Livingstone and then the whole game changed. He got the nice understanding of manoeuvring the bowlers as well. He is very smart,” he added.
The World Cup-winning all-rounder then made a massive statement on Shreyas, saying that the Kolkata franchise is looking as strong as they were under the leadership of Gautam Gambhir, who had led the team to two IPL trophies.
“KKR is looking very very solid as far as leadership is concerned. After Gautam Gambhir, under Shreyas Iyer, this is the team to beat,” he said.