He’ll need a longer rope – KKR assistant coach Abhishek Nayar backs Rinku Singh as a finisher

Kolkata Knight Riders assistant head coach Abhishek Nayar has put his weight behind Rinku Singh to do the job for the national team as a finisher. Singh received his maiden T20I call-up for the upcoming three-match T20I series against Ireland and also the Asian Games.

Singh had a terrific run in IPL 2023, scoring 474 runs in 14 matches at an average of 59.25 and a strike rate of 149.53. The southpaw scored a total of four fifties in the season and really impressed while batting in the middle order for KKR.

Singh grabbed the headlines when he smashed five sixes in the final over against Yash Dayal to take KKR over the line.

“There are multiple players who can achieve that. There is one player, Rinku Singh who played the role of a finisher really well for KKR (Kolkata Knight Riders) in the 16th edition of the IPL. He has also played that role in domestic cricket, but in my opinion he’ll still need some more time, he’ll need a longer rope, he needs to be backed,” said Nayar while speaking to the Republic World.

Nayar feels it is not easy to play the finisher role with great success as you are mostly expected to hit the ground running.

“Being a finisher is very tough and you’ll have more failures than success while taking that responsibility. It requires a lot of experience. Tilak Varma has proved his mettle up the order and he is terrific at number 4 but the only name that comes to my mind and I say it clearly without any bias is Rinku Singh,” added Nayar.

“I have seen this Indian kid do so well as a finisher. He has this unique capability of going in and consistently hitting big sixes. He is not one of the biggest blokes. He can play that role really well, but he will need that long rope,” concluded Nayar.

On the other hand, two years ago, Shubman Gill was released by KKR and the youngster went on to do a fine job for Gujarat Titans. Gill amassed 890 runs in 17 matches for GT in IPL 2023 and played a key role in taking the team to the final of the tournament. Nayar feels it was a brave decision from KKR to let go of Gill.

“Woah, that’s a brave question. These are very internal matters and they remain within the franchise so I choose not to talk about that.”