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Rinku Singh and Chandrakant Pandit (Source - Twitter)
Rinku Singh led KKR to a thrilling three-wicket win at the Narendra Modi Stadium on Sunday against Gujarat Titans in the 13th match of IPL 2023. Chasing 205, KKR needed 29 runs in the last over to win. No one was expecting that the UP's young batter Rinku would bring a storm in the last over to give victory to KKR. GT gave the responsibility of the last over to Yash Dayal. Umesh Yadav took a single on the first ball. After that, Rinku hit five consecutive sixes in the last five balls.
Rinku remained unbeaten on 48 and made a seemingly impossible victory possible for Kolkata which will be discussed for a long time in the cricket world. KKR head coach Chandrakant Pandit praised young left-handed batter Rinku for hitting five sixes in the last five balls. He also praised Venkatesh Iyer and Nitish Rana for their brilliant knocks.
"In 43 years of my cricket career, being a coach, playing cricket, first-class cricket, and international, I’ve previously seen two innings. One is Ravi Shastri scoring six sixes in the Ranji Trophy, and second, was last ball sixes by Javed Miandad in Dubai and after that, I’m seeing you,” Pandit told the Kolkata Knight Riders team.
“So, somebody has scored 1 run in that last over first ball. And also we must also appreciate Nitish, Venkatesh,” Pandit further added.
Didn't think too much out there: Rinku Singh
In the game's 17th over, KKR appeared to be in trouble as GT's skipper in that match, Rashid Khan struck a hat-trick, taking out Andre Russell, Sunil Narine, and Shardul Thakur, decimating the team's middle-order. In the final five balls, when facing Dayal, Rinku took advantage of the bowler's short deliveries and hit five clean sixes to win the match. He talked about his brilliant knock in the post-match presentation and said:
"Last year I was in a similar situation in Lucknow. Had the belief back then too. Didn't think too much out there. Those shots just happened one after the other."