Punjab Kings captain Shikhar Dhawan made a bold claim following his team’s five-wicket loss to the Kolkata Knight Riders on May 8: “The team doesn’t have a good off-spinner in the mix and he believes that to be one of the reasons why they are leaking so many runs in almost every game.”
The opener also mentioned how difficult it was to bat on the Eden Gardens surface and praised Arshdeep Singh for his outstanding bowling in the last over, which left KKR needing only six runs to win. His first five deliveries were perfect, but Rinku Singh’s boundary in the penultimate ball, which helped KKR win their fifth game in IPL 2023, caused the pacer to err in his line and length.
Obviously, not feeling great feels terrible. Despite the difficult surface, they performed well overall. Arshdeep put forth a fantastic effort considering how well he recovered from the previous game. He deserves all the credit for pushing the game to the final ball. We don’t, in my opinion, have a strong off-spinner. After the game, Shikhar Dhawan spoke with the host announcer. “When left-handers come, we have a leg-spinner and at the other end, we have a left-arm spinner,” he remarked.
“So I think that’s where we are leaking a few runs. I believe that’s where we took the hit since this wicket was also turning,” he continued.
In City of Joy, Rinku Singh and Andre Russell steal the show.
KKR were under extreme pressure to reach their 180-run target because the home team was frequently losing wickets. But this time, Andre Russell responded to the occasion, played some outstanding cricket, and scored 42 runs off only 23 pitches to help KKR get back into the game.
Along with him, Rinku Singh once again became well-known after scoring 21 runs off of ten balls, including a boundary on the very last delivery. With that, KKR successfully chased down the enormous total, moving up to fifth place on the IPL points table while the Punjab Kings fell to seventh.
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