Former India national cricket team captain Kris Srikkanth has praised 23-year-old fast bowler Harshit Rana after his heroics in the Sydney ODI against Australia national cricket team.
Chris Srikkanth, who was among the experts who mercilessly criticized Harshit Rana’s selection, said he deserves all the praise in the world for the way he bowled in the third ODI against the Australians at the Sydney Cricket Ground.
Thanks to Harshit Rana, India bowled out Australia for 236 runs in Sydney.
In the match, Australia once again won the toss and decided to bat first. Explosive openers Mitchell Marsh and Travis Head gave Australia a good start and Mohammed Siraj added 61 runs before sending the left-hander back.
After this, India kept taking wickets at regular intervals and did not allow the Australian team to build big partnerships that could have taken them to big scores.
Axar Patel got the second wicket by dismissing Mitchell Marsh for 41 runs, while Washington Sundar got the third wicket by sending back Matthew Short for 30 runs.
Star wicketkeeper-batsman Alex Carey was the next to fall for 24 after playing a poor innings, and Matt Renshaw, who played a good innings of 56, was unable to convert his starts into big scores, resulting in the Australians being reduced to 195/5.
After this, India continued their dominance and bowled out Australia for 236 runs in 46.4 overs. Harshit Rana was the top performer for India, taking 4 wickets, while Washington Sundar took 2 wickets. The rest of the bowlers – Mohammad Siraj, Prasidh Krishna, Kuldeep Yadav and Axar Patel got one wicket each.
Australia’s worst defeat by 180+ for 3 wickets in ODI cricket:
24/7 (202/3 to 226) vs West Indies Melbourne 1989
26/7 (258 from 232/3) vs India Mumbai WS 1996
47/7 (237 from 190/3) vs Pak Melbourne 2005
53/7 (236 from 183/3) vs India Sydney 2025
Therefore today Harshit Rana deserves all praise. I’m so happy for you – Kris Srikkanth
Kris Srikkanth got personal while attacking Harshit Rana for his flop show and alleged that he was selected in the Indian team only because he was the one to get Gautam Gambhir’s nod.
However, when Harshit Rana dominated against the Australian team, Kris Srikkanth had to resort to his own words and praised the youngster for his brilliant spell.
“So today Harshit Rana deserves all the praise. I am very happy for you. Yes, I criticized you a lot but at the end of the day, you performed very well. His confidence is back after scoring runs from his first spell with bat and ball in the last match,” he said on his official YouTube channel.
“The more he performs like this, his confidence will grow. Today he looked a very confident bowler.”
Taking four wickets in an ODI is a big achievement – Kris Srikkanth
Chris Srikkanth said that Rana bowled brilliantly, his favorite being dismissing Mitchell Owen. he explained:
“Harshit Rana bowled brilliantly. Taking four wickets in an ODI is a big achievement. My favorite was the wicket of Owen. It was a brilliant delivery and Rohit took a brilliant catch.”
“He bowled a great line and length. In the last match he was out in the death overs, but in this game he bowled very well in the death overs as well. He didn’t bowl short balls today and didn’t try to bowl too many slow balls.”
Also read: Virat Kohli’s coach bowed before Rohit Sharma after his brilliant performance in Sydney ODI!
