Riders of the Knights of CalcuttaUncapped seamer Harshit Rana has stated that the team is solely focused on executing the style of play that Gautam Gambhir wants to implement.
Harshit Rana’s comments came after Knight Riders registered their eighth win of the IPL 2024 season against Gautam Gambhir’s former franchise. KKR had traveled to the Ekana stadium to face the Lucknow Supergiants for a return meeting. In their previous match, the East Indies team won by 8 wickets on April 14.
Harshit Rana claims Gautam Gambhir knows how to change games
While talking 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 difficult for any captain to match as the former India opener delivered 2 IPL trophies during his tenure as captain in 2012 and 2014.
Since then, the Knight Riders have reached the finals only once in 2021. In fact, in 2022 and 2023, Kolkata found it extremely difficult to even think about finishing in the top 4 of the points table, finishing 7th in the last few two seasons. However, KKR has become a different beast since Gautam Gambhir left LSG and took over the former franchise from him as a mentor.
Kolkata’s brave and bold approach first became clear when they named Mitchell Starc the most expensive player in the IPL during the 2024 auction. But as the season began, KKR faithfully stuck to that approach, and much of the credit must go to it. for Gautam Gambhir.
Harshit Rana confirmed that Gambhir has imparted a lot of knowledge to the team on how games can change in complicated situations. On yesterday’s 98-run win, Rana claimed that Gambhir had given freedom to the players as to where to bowl the ball.
“We focus a lot on the style of cricket that Gautam Gambhir wants us to play. He has a lot of knowledge on how to change games in our favour. Like today, he gave the players freedom on what areas to target on the field.” – said Harshit Rana after KKR’s victory over LSG.
Harshit Rana also had some glowing words for him and the other KKR players who defeated the Lucknow franchise for 137. LSG were chasing a mammoth total of 236 but the 3 wickets each of Rana and Varun Chakravarthy, Mitchell Starc and Sunil Narine 1 wicket, and Andre Russell’s double paved the way for KKR’s victory.
In that regard, Rana stated that the players read the surface at the Ekana Stadium very well and knew exactly where to target the LSG batsmen. “KKR read the wicket very well. The areas we had to play, we targeted the right places.” – Rana concluded.
KKR wins with 98-run victory
Meanwhile, with their 98-run win over Super Giants, KKR replaced Rajasthan Royals for the first time at the top of the IPL 2024 table. KKR and RR are now tied on 16 points, but Shreyas Iyer’s team is in the top due to a higher net run rate of +1.453 compared to Rajasthan’s +0.622. Their next match will be against the bottom-placed Mumbai Indians.