Rinku hits 6,6,6,6,6 to hand KKR miracle win over GT
Rashid Khan took a 17th over hattrick but KKR pulled off a last-ball win after Rinku chased down 29 in the final over in Ahmedabad.
An all-rounder, an India regular not so long back, plunders 63 off 24–hitting three consecutive sixes in the last over–but it isn’t what you would remember most from this match. By the 16th over of a gripping chase, a 40-ball 83 in a 100-run stand with the captain seems to have upstaged it, but it still doesn’t. Surely a 17th over hattrick then? Still no.
Conspiring to mess with your nerves and get you to chew off your nails, this chase boils down to seemingly a point of no return when the scoreboard shows 28 runs required from five balls. That’s a six every ball. Remember Carlos Brathwaite’s four sixes in 2016? This required Rinku Singh to go one better. He still did it, keeping his composure while tonking three Yash Dayal full tosses before clearing his front leg and climbing into two short length balls, belting them over the bowler’s head to complete one of the most rip-roaring and inspiring wins in this format.
In a T20 match where 411 runs were scored, it took the last ball to separate the winners. Only four times before this has five sixes been hit an over in IPL. The highest successful final-over chase before this was in 2016, when Rising Pune Supergiants scored 23 runs against Punjab Kings. Add another six to it and the incredulity of this win increases, partly because KKR looked the most frail batting side even before IPL started. No Shreyas Iyer, no Shakib Al Hasan, not even the most hardcore KKR fan would have bet on this team.
Scoring 200 plus in the home game after being 89/5 before this, on the receiving end of an assault similar to Shardul Thakur’s at the home of the holders—fortunes have never swung so wildly for a team. Best thing to have come out of both wins? KKR now believe they can go all the way, from any low.
{{/usCountry}}Scoring 200 plus in the home game after being 89/5 before this, on the receiving end of an assault similar to Shardul Thakur’s at the home of the holders—fortunes have never swung so wildly for a team. Best thing to have come out of both wins? KKR now believe they can go all the way, from any low.
{{/usCountry}}It didn’t look like that when Rashid Khan was being feted for a sensational hattrick. Standing in as captain after Hardik Pandya reported unwell, Khan dismissed Andre Russell, Sunil Narine and Thakur in the 17th over, prompting celebrations. Khan was having a rare bad day before that, conceding 35 runs in three overs, when he took the ball with KKR needing 50 from 24 balls, a difficult but not impossible task.
{{/usCountry}}It didn’t look like that when Rashid Khan was being feted for a sensational hattrick. Standing in as captain after Hardik Pandya reported unwell, Khan dismissed Andre Russell, Sunil Narine and Thakur in the 17th over, prompting celebrations. Khan was having a rare bad day before that, conceding 35 runs in three overs, when he took the ball with KKR needing 50 from 24 balls, a difficult but not impossible task.
{{/usCountry}}First ball, a googly to Andre Russell. For the second match in a row, the big Jamaican had failed to connect a big shot off a spinner. Khan wasn’t sure but KS Bharat, keeping in place of Wriddhiman Saha, was convinced of an inside edge that was upheld by the third umpire. Next ball was straight, and on length; Sunil Narine slogged across the line but couldn’t clear deep midwicket. Last ball–another googly–thudded into Thakur’s back leg in front of middle and leg.
Amid this implosion waited Singh, on four off seven balls. Next over, KKR got five singles, pushing the asking rate to 21.5 per over. Two wides, two singles and two dots later in the 19th over, Singh went into mayhem mode. This is what happened to the last seven balls bowled to him–6, 4, 6, 6, 6, 6, 6. Dayal couldn’t hold his nerve, bowling full tosses and then short in the hope of bouncing the diminutive batter. But Singh was in his zone, living up to his reputation of hitting sixes at will, surpassing probably his own expectation as well.
“I had belief that I can do this,” said Singh at the presentation ceremony. “(Nitish) Rana bhai said to keep belief and to bat till the end, then we will see what happens. I was not thinking a lot, I was just reacting to the ball. It kept coming out of the middle.”
In hindsight, KKR could have avoided the drama had they not leaked 45 runs in the last two overs. One of the best pitches in IPL so far warranted at least 170-180. And Titans were going along expected lines, getting 54 in the Powerplay, before Sai Sudharsan reached his second consecutive fifty. Narine was again a picture of calm, returning a brilliant 3/33, capped by Sudharsan’s wicket and just eight runs in the 18th over.
From 159/4, KKR should have restricted Titans to at least 185. But Rana decided to go with pace. The 19th over by Lockie Ferguson went for 25 runs as Shankar hammered him for two sixes and two fours. Next over, Shankar launched into Thakur, clearing deep midwicket, long on and wide long on for three consecutive sixes.
