Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) ‘s latest recruit and Australia’s white-ball captain Aaron Finch has heaped praises on his teammate and countryman Pat Cummins for the latter’s exploits with the bat in the Indian Premier League (IPL).
Notably, Finch made his debut for the two-time champions when he entered the field in the game against Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) last week.
In an interview on KKR’s official YouTube channel, the Victorian expressed his admiration for Cummins’ batting adventures.
Finch was asked to share his thoughts on Cummins’ jaw-dropping performance with the bat against Mumbai Indians (MI) on April 06. The New South Wales cricketer had played a blistering unbeaten knock of 56 from just 15 deliveries with the help of 10 boundaries, including 6 humungous sixes, to propel KKR to a dominating triumph.
Sharing his thoughts on Cummins’ brutal batting show, Finch said he was taken aback by the performance of the Aussie Test skipper. Finch also revealed that Cummins is referred to as ‘IPL Pat’ by his Australian teammates because he has a much better batting record in the IPL than his national team.
“Absolutely, I was taken aback by it! We call him IPL Pat because he bats a lot better in IPL than he does for Australia. He’s played some great innings for KKR, and he works hard on his batting, so it was great to see him continue that aggressive mindset batting at number seven to come out and keep swinging hard from ball one and change the momentum of the game, it was brilliant,” said Finch.
The 35-year-old mentioned that he was initially disappointed after not getting picked in the IPL 2022 mega auction but was very happy when KKR picked him as a replacement for Alex Hales.
“Yeah, of course (I was disappointed on not being picked up at the auction). Yeah. But then, to get the call from Baz [Head coach Brendon McCullum] to come and join KKR, I was very excited and jumped at the opportunity,” added Finch.
