Kolkata (West Bengal) [India], March 22 (ANI): It was a clash of titans as Kolkata Knight Riders' (KKR) 'ice-cold finisher' Rinku Singh and the most expensive player in the Indian Premier League (IPL) history, Australian pacer Mitchell Starc faced off in an intra-squad practice game ahead of their campaign opener against Sunrisers Hyderabad taking place on Saturday.
KKR took to X (formerly Twitter), posting a small snippet of the face-off between Rinku and Starc in the practice match.
Young Rinku had no problems facing a heavyweight of Starc's calibre, as one of the balls was edged towards the boundary. The other two deliveries were dispatched for a massive six and a disdainful boundary in the on-side and off-side region respectively.
"Fiery death bowler vs Ice cold finisher," tweeted KKR.
https://twitter.com/KKRiders/status/1771166070079910223
Rinku was the ninth-leading run-scorer last year in the IPL, scoring 474 runs in 14 matches at an average of 59.25 and a strike rate of almost 150, with four fifties. He has been able to carry his great IPL form into some fine knocks for India, scoring 356 runs in 15 matches across 11 innings at an average of 89.00 and a strike rate of 176, with two half-centuries. His best score is 69*.
Starc became the most expensive player in IPL history during the auctions held in Dubai last year, being bought by KKR for Rs 24.75 crore. Starc made his return to the Indian Premier League (IPL) auction after years, having last played in 2015. In his IPL career, Starc has 34 wickets to his name in 27 matches he played for Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) from 2014-15. With 668 international wickets, Starc is one of the greatest pacers of the modern era.
The Knight Riders have a spring in their step with legendary former skipper, and two-time IPL winner with the franchise, Gautam Gambhir returning after six years and Shreyas Iyer returning from injury back at the helm of affairs. A rejuvenated pace attack along with a strong Indian core make KKR a force to watch out for.
In the 25 games that KKR & SRH have played against each other, KKR have the wood over SRH with a 16-9 record. The stats get even better for KKR if one zooms into their last six meetings. KKR are leading 4-2 and they will be aiming to make it 5-2 come tomorrow's game.
Kolkata Knight Riders Squad: Philip Salt(w), Venkatesh Iyer, Shreyas Iyer(c), Nitish Rana, Andre Russell, Rinku Singh, Ramandeep Singh, Sunil Narine, Mitchell Starc, Harshit Rana, Varun Chakaravarthy, Manish Pandey, Srikar Bharat, Mujeeb Ur Rahman, Anukul Roy, Rahmanullah Gurbaz, Chetan Sakariya, Sherfane Rutherford, Vaibhav Arora, Dushmantha Chameera, Angkrish Raghuvanshi, Sakib Hussain, Suyash Sharma
Sunrisers Hyderabad Squad: Mayank Agarwal, Travis Head, Abhishek Sharma, Aiden Markram, Heinrich Klaasen(w), Washington Sundar, Abdul Samad, Pat Cummins(c), Bhuvneshwar Kumar, T Natarajan, Umran Malik, Rahul Tripathi, Glenn Phillips, Jaydev Unadkat, Anmolpreet Singh, Upendra Yadav, Mayank Markande, Jhatavedh Subramanyan, Sanvir Singh, Fazalhaq Farooqi, Marco Jansen, Shahbaz Ahmed, Akash Maharaj Singh, Nitish Reddy. (ANI)
