Kolkata Knight Riders couldn’t help but admit that Yashasvi Jaiswal made the difference during their humiliating loss to Rajasthan Royals on Thursday.
Jaiswal hit the fastest IPL fifty en route to his 98 not out (47b) on a tricky wicket.
“The wicket didn’t change much. It’s just that Jaiswal batted unbelievably. The way he played every ball we had no answers to his onslaughts,” Venkatesh Iyer said. “It felt for us that he’s batting on a different track altogether because no other batters found it easy there, so credit to him.
“It’s the variety of shots he hit, effective and still orthodox. There was just one reverse hit, rest all were orthodox cricketing shots. He is a man in form, an amazing batter,” Venkatesh, who top-scored for the Knights, said.
He defended captain Nitish Rana bowling the opening over when defending 149.
“With a lefthander (Jaiswal) at the crease and him being an off spinner, I don’t think it was a wrong option,” Venkatesh said. “He has picked crucial wickets in his career. Unfortunately, it didn’t go in our favour, had he picked up the wicket (of Jaiswal), it would have been a captain’s masterstroke. These things happen on the field.”
Terming Rana an “unbelievable bowler”, Venkatesh said: “The wicket was holding a little bit and was on the slower side. We wanted to exploit the spin with the new ball.
“It didn’t work out so the questions. But Rana is an unbelievable bowler, he has come up and picked wickets wherever he bowled with economical bowling. One game would not make him a bad bowler.”
Venkatesh also didn’t forget to laud the Royals’ superb effort on the field. While Shimron Hetmyer dismissed Jason Roy with a well-judged running catch on the boundary, a diving Sandeep Sharma took a blinder at mid off to bring an end to Rahmanullah Gurbaz’s brisk start.
“Both of them were good shots and great catches. They easily saved around 20-odd runs on the field which in T20 is unbelievable,” he said.
