Rinku Singh has played enough such knocks in the IPL and now in his limited chances for Team India to force himself into India’s first-choice squad – maybe even in India’s first-choice XI – when all the players are available.
He’s played only 4 T20I innings so far but has clearly stood out for his brilliant finishing and calm temperament.
Rinku Singh’s scores in his 4 T20I knocks are 38(21), 37*(15), 22*(14), 31*(9). The last two of them were against good bowling attacks of a second-string Australia unit. In 4 T20I innings, the left-handed KKR batsman has cracked 128 runs at a stunning strike rate of 216, getting out only once.
In the first T20I against Australia, Rinku Singh kept India in the hunt after Suryakumar Yadav got out and wickets fell at the other end. He even sealed the match with a last-ball six, which didn’t count as Sean Abbott had overstepped when India required 1 run in 1 ball.
As for the second T20I, the pressure on Rinku Singh to get more boundaries added as Ruturaj Gaikwad batted slowly at the other end, and couldn’t find boundaries even in the death overs.
In the 2nd T20I against Australia, in Thiruvananthapuram, Rinku smashed 31* runs in only 9 balls, managing a thunderous strike rate of 344. The southpaw cracked 4 fours and 2 sixes to take India to a massive total of 235.
Fans on Twitter hailed Rinku Singh with memes and tribute tweets:
Australia captain Matthew Wade had won the toss and elected to bowl first.
Teams:
India (Playing XI): Yashasvi Jaiswal, Ruturaj Gaikwad, Ishan Kishan(w), Suryakumar Yadav(c), Tilak Varma, Rinku Singh, Axar Patel, Ravi Bishnoi, Arshdeep Singh, Mukesh Kumar, Prasidh Krishna
Australia (Playing XI): Steven Smith, Matthew Short, Josh Inglis, Marcus Stoinis, Tim David, Glenn Maxwell, Matthew Wade(w/c), Sean Abbott, Nathan Ellis, Adam Zampa, Tanveer Sangha
