West Indian players have always been a staple among the foreign recruits in the Indian Premier League (IPL) since its inception. One such player is Rajasthan Royals (RR) batter Shimron Hetmyer, who has been around since 2019. Hetmyer has turned out for Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) and Delhi Capitals (DC) in previous seasons, reaching the final with the latter during the 2020 edition of the IPL.
During that time, former India cricketer Mohammad Kaif was serving as the Delhi Capitals’ assistant coach. In a recent interview with Sportskeeda, the former India batter recalled his time working with Hetmyer and spoke about one of the Guyanese cricketer's qualities that brings the best out of him.
“Hetmyer is happy-go-lucky and is quite relaxed. Most batters plan against opposition bowlers, but Hetmyer just doesn’t care. He just says ‘that is waste of time, let me eat my burger and pizza.’ Once I had told him whether he knows how to play mystery spinner Varun Chakravarthy. He said Varun who? But in the game, he played really well”, Kaif told Sportskeeda.
Kaif alluded that Hetmyer knows how to hit sixes against spin as well, “I know Hetmyer personally and he is a brilliant player of spin and knows how to hit sixes against spin... Hetmyer is in good form and won the last game for Rajasthan. It will be a battle worth watching, one has form while the other has class,” he added.
Coming back to IPL 2022, Hetmyer has been RR’s backbone so far after joining the club for Rs 8.50 crores. He has made a tremendous impact in the middle-order with his power-hitting abilities, having amassed 197 runs in five matches at an average of 65.67 and an outstanding strike rate of 177.48. He scored a quickfire unbeaten 59 off 36 against the Lucknow Super Giants (LSG), which turned out to be a match-winning knock.
Against Gujarat Titans in their last match on Thursday (April 15), Hetmyer was again at his usual best. He hit a 17-ball 29 but was unable to prevent his side from losing their match and moving down the points table to third.
