Shahrukh Khan (SRK), the proud owner of Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR), on Sunday, took to Twitter to congratulate his franchise members on their 100th IPL win. KKR, in their 194th IPL outing, defeated Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) by a margin of 10 runs.
Batting first at the MA Chidambaram Stadium, KKR’s opener Nitish Rana scored a swashbuckling 56-ball 80 and steadied the innings, along with his teammate Rahul Tripathi, after losing the other opener Shubman Gill for a mere 53 runs on board.
The Kolkata based franchise set a target of 188 runs for the David Warner-led team to chase in their allotted 20 overs.
However, Rana missed his highest IPL score of 87 runs by just seven runs. Overall, the Delhi-born lad has scored 1517 runs in the 61 IPL matches he has played so far at an average of 29.17 and a tremendous strike rate of 135.93.
The 27-year-old, when asked about his tactics, said that he kept it simple and hit every ball coming in his radar.
“I thought the ball was in my slot so I went for it and luckily got four off my first ball. In my mind there’s only one thing: play my shots if the ball is there. Just backed myself. Have played a lot of spin growing up,” Rana remarked at the presentation-ceremony..
SRK, who couldn’t be present at the stadium due to COVID-19 restrictions, applauded his team on Twitter.
The Bollywood star even cheered for Harbhajan Singh, who played his first match for KKR and set foot in the IPL field after almost two years.
Good to hav our 100th IPL match win. Well done boys…@KKRiders @prasidh43 @DineshKarthik @NitishRana_27 #Rahul @Russell12A @harbhajan_singh ( good to see u even if briefly )@Sah75official @patcummins30 actually all were so good to watch.
— Shah Rukh Khan (@iamsrk) April 11, 2021
The off-spinner, famous for his ‘doosra’, could have dismissed David Warner in his very first over if Pat Cummins would have not dropped the catch.
KKR are set to play their second match of the season against Mumbai Indians (MI) at the same venue on April 13.
