Not many had given Varun Aaron much of a chance before Thursday’s IPL match against Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) at the Eden Gardens.
In just his second appearance for Rajasthan Royals (RR) this season, he rocked the Knight Riders top order with disciplined bowling. The Jharkhand pacer’s effort (4-1-20-2) also earned him the Man-of-the-Match award.
After winning the toss and opting to bowl first in Kolkata, Steve Smith gave Aaron the new ball in absence of Dhawal Kulkarni. The 29-year-old pacer started off brilliantly, dismissing the dangerous Chris Lynn in his first over before coming back two overs late to haunt the hosts with another wicket, this time of another opening batsman Shubman Gill.
The 19-year-old Gill, who had hit Aaron for a boundary earlier in the over was completely deceived by the banana inswinger. Gill was looking to play the same shot which had earned him a boundary two balls earlier but the swing bamboozled him completely this time and he ended up playing across the line. The ball took the faint edge of the bat before crashing into the stumps.
Here’s the video:
— CricBoll (@mycricboll) April 25, 2019
Later, RR chased the 176-run target in the last over and won the game against KKR by 3 wickets.
