“I decided to go with Venky because…”: Shreyas Iyer reveals why Venkatesh Iyer and not Andre Russell bowled 19th Over vs RCB in 2022 IPL

Gurpreet Singh | 31/03/2022
"I decided to go with Venky because...": Shreyas Iyer reveals why Venkatesh Iyer bowled ahead of Andre Russell during 19th Over of RCB chase vs KKR in IPL 2022

Shreyas Iyer reveals why Venkatesh Iyer was bowled ahead of Andre Russell during crucial juncture of the match versus RCB.

During the sixth match of the ongoing 15th season of the Indian Premier League at Dr DY Patil Cricket Stadium in Mumbai, the Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) defeated Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) by 3 wickets, in what was yet another humdinger of a match in the early phase of the tournament.

Chasing mere 128 runs posted by KKR in the first innings, Faf du Plessis’ men got off to an even worse start than their rivals, having lost 3 wickets during the Powerplay with only 36 runs on the board.

The overseas all-rounder duo of David Willey (18 off 28) and Sherfane Rutherford (28 off 40) then took the burden upon themselves to rescue the drowning ship, but it was a lovely little innings by Shahbaz Ahmed (27 off 20) that blew life into the chase.

The Southpaw smashed a couple of sixes off Andre Russell during the 13th Over of the chase, which provided the much required momentum to the innings. Ultimately, with 7 runs required off the final Over, a calm-headed Dinesh Karthik (14* off 7) finished the deal with four deliveries to spare.

Shreyas Iyer reveals why Venkatesh Iyer was bowled

Having finished the remarkable spells of his fast-bowling duo of Umesh Yadav (4-0-16-2) and Tim Southee (4-0-20-3) by the end of 18th Over, Iyer opted to go with Venkatesh Iyer ahead of Russell during the 19th, with 17 runs still needed of the final two Overs.

Having not bowled an Over yet in the match, Iyer conceded 10 runs, including a boundary of his final delivery to bring the equation down to 7 off 6.

A discomforted Russell eventually had to bowl the final Over, but it took only two deliveries for Karthik to finish off the proceedings.

Explaining the rationale of handing Venkatesh the penultimate Over, Iyer remarked that the former has a decent experience of bowling at the international level, and that he needs to back his players, especially during the initial part of the tournament.

“At the end, I decided to go with Venky because he has some experience bowling at the international level. Important to give confidence to the players as early as possible,” stated Iyer during the post-match presentation.

Post Edited By: Gurpreet Singh
Andre Russell IPL 2022 KKR kkr vs rcb RCB shreyas iyer

About the author

Gurpreet Singh

Gurpreet Singh is a Cricket writer at The Sportsrush. His platonic relationship with sports had always been there since childhood, but Cricket managed to strike a special, intimate nerve of his heart. Although his initial dream of playing the sport at the highest level couldn't come to fruition, Gurpreet did represent the state of Jharkhand at the under-14 level. However, almost like taking a pledge to never let the undying passion for Cricket fade away even a tad, he made sure to continue the love relationship by assigning the field of journalism as an indirect Cupid. He thus, first finished his bachelor's in journalism and then pursued the PG Diploma course in English journalism from the Indian Institute of Mass Communication (IIMC). Soon after and since 2019, he has been working at The Sportsrush. Apart from sports, he takes keen interest in politics, and in understanding women and gender-related issues.

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