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Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) eked out a thrilling four-run win over Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) to kick off their Indian Premier League (IPL) 2024 campaign on a high on March 23. But the player who made the most headlines for all the good and bad reasons, was undoubtedly Harshit Rana. Harshit, in his third year with the KKR, proved his worth in the tense clash at the Eden Gardens stadium. The 22-year-old pacer shone with a superb delivery, dismissing dangerous SRH opener Mayank Agarwal. In the sixth over's third ball, Rana fired a bouncer. Mayank attempted a pull shot but only managed to sky it towards the fielder at deep backward square leg, who completed the catch. Rana, in an excited celebration, blew a flying kiss towards the departing Mayank. The Indian batsman, however, remained composed and simply watched Rana walk away. Despite the dismissal, Mayank scored a quickfire 32 off 21 balls in SRH's pursuit of 209 runs.
Sunil Gavaskar lashes out Harshit Rana for bizarre flying kiss send off to Mayank Agarwal
Harshit Rana's bizarre celebration didn't sit well with batting great and former India skipper Sunil Gavaskar, who was left fuming after witnessing 22-year-old pacer's antics.
“He should not have done that. Did the batsman do anything to him when he was hitting him for sixes? Cricket can be played without these antics. It's the age of television. I understand that. Celebrate with your teammates but no need for such antics for the opposition,” Gavaskar said after the incident.
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The SRH, led by captain Pat Cummins, seemed to have the upper hand after winning the toss and electing to field first. KKR got off to a rocky start, losing their top order quickly. Despite a promising opening from Phil Salt (54 runs off 40 balls), the wickets of Sunil Narine (2), Venkatesh Iyer (7), Shreyas Iyer (0), and Nitish Rana (9) fell in rapid succession, leaving KKR struggling at 51/4 after just 7.3 overs. A glimmer of hope emerged with the arrival of Ramandeep Singh. He played a quickfire innings of 35 runs off just 17 balls, providing some much-needed stability to the KKR batting line-up. Unfortunately, his dismissal was followed by Salt's departure in the next over.
With the scoreboard at a precarious position, the onus fell on the lower-middle order to salvage the innings. Rinku Singh (23 runs off 15 balls) tried his best to contribute, but his wicket fell in the final over. However, the late order heroics of Andre Russell proved to be the turning point. His explosive knock of 64 runs off just 25 balls, including three boundaries and seven sixes, propelled KKR to a respectable total. During the run chase, SRH started well but ran out of steam in the end. Harshit, who returned with an impressive bowling figures of 3/33, was given the task to defend 13 runs off the last over. He ended up giving just eight runs and SRH found themselves four runs short of achieving the target.
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