Rahmanullah Gurbaz Treated Rashid Khan Like An Average Leggie: Michael Vaughan
For the longest time in the KKR innings, Gurbaz found himself as the only one who had find his mojo on the track and was batting at a good strike rate as others around him seemed to struggle.
Ex-England skipper Michael Vaughan showered praise on Kolkata Knight Riders opener Rahmanullah Gurbaz after the Afghanistan star's innings against the Gujarat Titans in their IPL 2023 face off at the Eden Gardnes on Saturday. After being invitred to bat first by GT, KKR got off to a reasonable start but it was Rahmanullah Gurbaz who made sure that even as wickets fell in the form of Narayan Jagadeedeesan and Shardul Thakur, he continued to score runs at a brisk rate.
In fact, for the longest time in the KKR innings, Gurbaz found himself as the only one who has find his mojo on the track and was batting at a good strike rate as others around him seemed to struggle. He eventually scored 81 off 39 balls with the help of 5 fours and 7 sixes but with other top-order batters struggling around him it was really the quickfire cameo from Andre Russell worth 34 off 19 that propelled KKR to 179/7 which turned out to be insufficient.
What was most notable about Gurbaz's innings was his performance against compatriot Rashid Khan. The star leg-spinner had an off-day on the field and went for 54 runs in his 4 overs, being taken to the cleaners by Gurbaz.
Talking about Gurbaz's effort, Vaughan too was particularly pleased to see the batter's batting against Rashid. "Rahmanullah Gurbaz was magnificent today. He just took them on. His teammate, Rashid Khan, he treated him as if he was just an average junior leg spinner. He hit him to all parts, that was great to see,” said Vaughan while speaking on Cricbuzz.
“They [Jason Roy and Rahmanullah Gurbaz] go out together. They go as an opening combination and they both play the same way. You've got double trouble with both going at the same time. That's a destructive opening partnership,” Vaughan added.
Having said that Roy did not play in this match owing to back spasms and it would be interesting to see if the management decided to go with that pair for their next game.
GT chased down the total with 13 balls to spare to go top of the table as it was their sixth win in eight matches.
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