"He Has A Lot Of Self-belief": Ex-India Opener In Awe Of KKR Spinner Suyash Sharma

Kolkata Knight Riders bowler Suyash Sharma had a memorable IPL debut as he outplayed the Royal Challengers Bangalore batters with his spin at the Eden Gardens on Thursday. The leggie picked up the prized wickets of pinch-hitter Dinesh Karthik, Anuj Rawat, and tail-ender Karn Sharma as KKR thrashed Faf du Plessis' side by 81 runs. Suyash ended his quota of four overs with figures of 3 for 30. The confidence was clearly visible as the leg-spinner confidently dealt with the RCB batters on his debut.

Former India opener Parthiv Patel was left duly impressed with the 19-year-old youngster.

"He left an impact based on how he was bowling. We've seen him at the U-25 for Delhi, the way he bowls. As Nitish (Rana) said, he is a different kind of leg-spinner. He goes more towards a googly but he has pace as well. We can see his confidence especially when he's asking for a DRS call with the captain. You can see he has a lot of self-belief. He's played U-25 but hasn't played first-class cricket, neither played Mushtaq Ali nor Vijay Hazare, and the fact that he could perform like this in front of 70,000 people is extremely praiseworthy. It's very hard to perform under pressure," said IPL expert Parthiv on JioCinema.

Talking about the game, Shardul Thakur smashed a counter-attacking half-century before the spinners played their part to perfection as KKR made a memorable homecoming with an 81-run win over RCB.

KKR found themselves tottering for 89/5 before Thakur led a superb recovery with his 29-ball 68 to power his team to 204/7 after RCB opted to bowl.

In reply, RCB failed to last the distance and folded up for 123 in 17.4 overs with the trio of Varun Chakravarthy, Sunil Narine and Suyash sharing eight wickets between themselves.

(Wi