Kolkata Knight RidersUnmarked player Harshit Rana has claimed that the team is solely focused on implementing the style of play that Gautam Gambhir wants to implement.
Harshit Rana’s comments came after the Knight Riders registered their eighth win of the 2024 IPL season against Gautam Gambhir’s former franchise. KKR had traveled to the Ekana Stadium to take on the Lucknow Super Giants for a return match. In their last encounter, the East Indian team was ahead by eight wickets on April 14.
Harshit Rana claims Gautam Gambhir knows how to turn the game around
While speaking to the IPL 2024 commentators after the match, Harshit Rana revealed how impactful and influential Gautam Gambhir has been for KKR. Gambhir’s legacy in the franchise will be unmatched by any captain as the former India opener won two IPL trophies during his stint as captain in 2012 and 2014.
Since then, the Knight Riders have only reached the finals once in 2021. In fact, Calcutta found it extremely difficult to even think about finishing in the top four of the points table in 2022 and 2023, finishing seventh in the last two seasons. However, KKR has changed since Gautam Gambhir left LSG and took over as a mentor from his former franchise.
Kolkata’s fearless and bold approach was first evident when they made Mitchell Starc the most expensive player in the IPL during the 2024 auction. But when the season started, KKR fully maintained this approach and a lot of the credit goes to Gautam Gambhir.
Harshit Rana confirmed that Gambhir has passed on a lot of knowledge to the team on how to turn games around from difficult situations. Speaking about yesterday’s 98-run win, Rana claimed that Gambhir gave the bowlers freedom to bowl the ball.
“We are very focused on the style of cricket that Gautam Gambhir expects from us. He has a lot of knowledge about how we can turn games in our favor. Like today, he gave the bowlers a free hand as to which areas to target on the field.” – said Harshit Rana after KKR’s win over LSG.
Harshit Rana also had some bright words for himself and the other KKR bowlers who bowled out the Lucknow franchise for 137. LSG were chasing a huge total of 236 but Rana and Varun Chakravarthy had three wickets each, Mitchell Starc and Sunil Narine had one wicket each and Andre Russell’s brace paved the way for KKR’s win.
On this note, Rana claimed that the bowlers read the surface very well at Ekana Stadium and knew exactly where to aim the LSG batters. “KKR read the wicket very well. The areas where we had to bowl, we targeted the right places.” – Rana concluded.
KKR are on top with their 98-run win
Meanwhile, with their 98-run win over the Super Giants, KKR overtook Rajasthan Royals at the top of the IPL 2024 table for the first time. KKR and RR are now level on 16 points, but Shreyas Iyer’s side are on top due to a higher net run rate of +1.453 compared to Rajasthan’s +0.622. Their next clash will be against Mumbai Indians, who are on the lower side.