IPL 2024: ​​Harshit Rana deserves award for final over heroics: Sunil Gavaskar

Legendary Sunil Gavaskar showered praise on Harshit Rana for his final over heroics against Sunrisers Hyderabad at the Eden Gardens, Kolkata on Saturday. KKR bested SRH by four runs as Rana successfully defended 13 runs in the last over.

Rana was put under the pump as Heinrich Klaasen smashed him for a six on the first ball he bowled. However, Rana bounced back and got rid of Shahbaz Ahmed and dangerous Klaasen. The right-arm medium pacer flummoxed Klaasen with a slower delivery.

Gavaskar said Rana quickly learned his lesson as he adopted the strategy of bowling slower deliveries after he was dispatched for a six on the first ball.

Meanwhile, Rana could have had more runs to defend in the last over but Mitchell Starc, who has been bought for a humongous amount of INR 24.75 crores, was taken for 26 runs in the penultimate over.

“Fantastic. He totally learned from that first ball he bowled; it was a quicker delivery, and it was pulled for a six by Klaasen. The next five deliveries, he took the pace off, bowled those slow cutters, slower off-cutters, which actually meant that there was no pace coming off the surface for the batters to play the big shot. So fantastic over, absolutely top class over from Harshit Rana. I think they gave Russell for his 2 wickets and 64 the player of the match, but they must also give something to Harshit Rana for his spell and particularly for that last over,” Gavaskar told Star Sports.

On the other hand, KKR skipper Shreyas Iyer revealed Rana was a bit nervous when he gave him the ball for the final over but in the end, he kept his calm.

Meanwhile, Andre Russell was awarded Player of the Match for scoring an unbeaten knock of 64 runs off just 25 balls. Furthermore, he also scalped two wickets as he accounted for Abhishek Sharma and Abdul Samad.

KKR will next take on Royal Challengers Bengaluru at the M.Chinnaswamy Stadium, Bengaluru on Friday.