IPL 2023: Whoever Is Bowling Better, I Try To Give Him The Tough Overs, Says Nitish On Giving Chakaravarthy Final Over

Kolkata Knight Riders skipper Nitish Rana stated that his logic behind giving Varun Chakaravarthy the final over, in which nine runs were needed to defend, came from him bowling much better than other spinners like the veteran Sunil Narine.

The pressure was on Chakaravarthy to defend nine runs off the final over with Abdul Samad and Bhuvneshwar Kumar at the crease. After conceding a single and leg-bye on the first two balls, the spinner had Samad mistiming a pull to deep mid-wicket and gave only one run off the last three balls to lead Kolkata to a five-run win.

"I had a doubt if I had to go with spinner/pacer (for the last over). But I just see who is bowling better on the day, whether it's Sunny (Sunil Narine), Varun or Suyash (Sharma, who didn't feature in the match). Whoever is bowling better, I try to give him the tough overs," said Rana after the match ended.

He was also appreciative of pacers Vaibhav Arora and Shardul Thakur taking two wickets each and forcing Kolkata's fightback in the match.

"In the middle, we bowled a few loose overs and took a gamble with Shardul and Vaibhav and they managed to get both set batters and that's how we made a comeback in this game. We had to get them out because if they bat till the end, then surely the game would have gone out of our reach."

Though Shardul Thakur had one over left, Rana gave the ball to Chakaravarthy for the final over, and the all-rounder said he was giving the skipper confidence to trust his gut feeling.

"The captain had a feeling that he should bowl Varun Chakaravarthy. So as a player, I just have to give confidence to our captain to go with his instincts. There's no point going in there with any kind of doubt. If he feels he needs to bowl Varun, I said go with your intuition."

Thakur had broken the 70-run stand between Heinrich Klaasen and Aiden Markram by having the former heave straight to deep mid-wicket on the first ball of the 15th over.

"I think the stage was set for me to get the wicket. If I get a wicket or two there, we are in the game and that's exactly what happened."

"On this kind of pitch, I thought about a cutter but the most important thing was to execute the length and hope that he plays a cross-batted shot and miscues one. When I went out to bat, I played just five or six balls but quickly saw some are stopping and some are coming on so thought I might as well use that."

"It was a little sticky. I felt if you bowled length balls, you would have been fine. If you see previous games, something needs to happen and we would lose a game from the winning point. It's been difficult, not easy with injuries, so this win was much needed," he concluded.

Also Read: IPL 2023 Points Table

Kolkata's next game in IPL 2023 will be against Punjab Kings at Eden Gardens on Monday.