IPL 2023: What was that? Sunil Gavaskar lashes out at KKR captain Nitish Rana

IPL 2023: Batting great Sunil Gavaskar has lashed out at Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) captain Nitish Rana for the way he got out in the match against Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) at the Eden Gardens on Thursday.

The right-hand batter was dismissed by RCB off-spinner Michael Bracewell right after the powerplay. The 29-year-old attempted a reverse-sweep on the first all of the seventh over but failed to connect the ball completely. The ball kissed the glove and Dinesh Karthik made no mistake in grabbing the ball.

Gavaskar who was commentating on air was miffed by Rana's (1 off 5) approach and slammed the Kolkata captain for his selection of shot, especially when his team had lost both their openers inside the first four overs.

“What kind of shot was that from KKR captain? He didn't connect at all. And as a captain, I think that shot was completely avoidable,” Gavaskar said on Star Sports.

Later, KKR found themselves reeling at 89/5 before Rinku Singh (46 off 33) and Shardul Thakur (68 off 29) forged a 103-run partnership off just 47 balls for the sixth wicket. The same propelled the hosts to win by 81 runs.

RCB were were bundled out for 123 run as spinners Varun Chakravarthy, debutant Suyash Sharma and Sunil Narine picked four, three and two wickets respectively.

Further, Gavaskar also hailed the rivalry between RCB and KKR over the years. He reckoned that such rivalries have been key to the success of IPL, according to the former India captain.

“The rivalry of KKR and RCB has given a new height to IPL. The stories related to the rivalry between these two teams took the fandom to an extreme and this was the reason why IPL emerged as the biggest T20 leagues in the world in due course,” he said.