The Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) failed to reach the playoffs of IPL 2023 as they went down by 1 run in their last league game, against Lucknow Super Giants (LSG). It was once again Rinku Singh’s blockbuster knock of 67* off 33 balls that kept KKR in the hunt and grabbed the headlines, as he’s done most of the season.
Rinku Singh is unarguably the brightest spot for KKR in their Indian Premier League 2023 campaign. The left-hander finished at the highest scorer of the team with 474 runs at a magnificent average of 59 and a terrific strike rate of 149 with 4 fifties – which is commendable given he batted lower down the order and in a highly mercurial role of a finisher.
With such performances and consistency in the Indian Premier League 2023 displayed by Rinku, many fans are championing his name to be included in India’s white-ball teams with World Cup 2023 and T20 World Cup 2024 in mind.
Here are 3 reasons why Rinku Singh could get a likely call-up to India’s ODI team as they build up for World Cup 2023:
Rinku could fill void of Rishabh Pant after showing elite finishing levels in the IPL
Rishabh Pant is not coming back anytime soon and is set to miss the ODI World Cup 2023. This means India will be without a left-handed fire-cracking finisher. Rinku’s name could come up to the selectors’ minds for filling that void. After all, Rinku was arguably the best finisher in the Indian Premier League 2023.
In the death overs in Indian Premier League 2023, Rinku smashed 239 runs at a humongous strike rate of 194. He walloped 20 sixes and 15 fours in the 12 times he batted in the death overs.
Excellent against pacers and cautious against spinners – shows the maturity of knowing your own game
In the Indian Premier League 2023, Rinku showed great awareness of his own game: the batter knows he’s at his best against pacers and can take down any pacer in the world with his skillset and temperament while also reaslising that biding caution against spinners has to be necessary.
In this season, Rinku scored 326 runs against seamers at a strike rate of 177 and got out only 4 times to pacers. As oppose to spinners, Rinku scored 148 runs at a strike rate of only 112. In the 50-over format, being a finisher this wouldn’t hurt because you are ought to face more of pace than spin.
Terrific List-A numbers
It is not that we don’t have reasons for backing Rinku Singh in the 50-over format and out assertions are not simply made by his IPL form. The Uttar Pradesh batsman has superb numbers in List-A cricket as well: in domestic List-A matches, Rinku has played 46 innings in which he averages 53 at a strike rate of 95 and has notched up 15 fifties and 1 century.
