Arshdeep Singh starred for the Punjab Kings in the victory in their first match against the Kolkata Knight Riders in Mohal, by 7 runs after DLS intervened due to the match being prematurely called off because of rain.
The left-arm seamer took 3 key wickets of KKR batters – those of Mandeep Singh, Anukul Roy, and Venkatesh Iyer – all via short balls. Arshdeep was specifically impressive with his usage of the short and back-of-length deliveries; keeping the line terrific and the length immaculate so that it reached the batters on their chests and shoulders which made them mistime and mishit their pull shots.
Pakistani fans says Arshdeep Singh “stole” Shaheen Afridi’s celebration; they get perfect reply from Indians
Apart from his usual airplane celebration, Arshdeep Singh showed a new celebration to the fans: a flying kiss to the fans, and perhaps the batter after taking a wicket.
A section of Pakistani fans commented that the Indian left-arm seamer has copied this celebration from Shaheen Afridi. To this, the Indian fans replied, pointing out that former India seamer Zaheer Khan used to do similar celebrations. Many fans also showed that a number of athletes around the world in various sports do similar celebrations as a gesture of sending their love and gratitude to the fans.
Here are some of the tweets on this topic:
Arshdeep Singh was awarded the Player of the Match for his brilliant bowling figures of 3/19 in a high-scoring encounter, where KKR managed 146/7 in 16 overs before rain halted their innings while chasing the target of 192.
Speaking on his short-ball ploy, he said: “I tried to be unpredictable. The wicket was good for batting so I was mixing it up. Players are expecting that I will bowl yorkers so I tried to surprise them a bit by bowling bouncers. There was some rain around so the wicket had become skiddy, so I was using making use of the conditions on offer.
“I am enjoying myself and the atmosphere in the dressing room is very good. Going ahead, we will try to keep enjoying and keep winning games for our side. (On Shikhar Dhawan) He has created a very good atmosphere amongst us and we are loving it.”
