‘He’s a champion bowler’ – Anil Kumble speaks highly of South African pace-bowling spearhead Kagiso Rabada

After Virat Kohli steered the Royal Challengers Bengaluru to their maiden victory of IPL 2024 with a sublime knock of 77 off 49, Anil Kumble chose to shine the spotlight on pacer Kagiso Rabada.

Rabada along with left-arm spinner Harpreet Brar, were the pick of the bowlers for the Punjab Kings, with them being the only bowlers who were successful in the simultaneous task of limiting the flow of runs, coupled with picking up crucial wickets to keep their side in the contest.

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The former Indian leg-spinner was the head coach of PBKS for three seasons, having taken over the helm in IPL 2020. Speaking to JioCinema after the match, Kumble praised Rabada, hailing him as a champion bowler for PBKS, while recounting Rabada’s expertise in the longest format of the game, as well as the fact that he has been representing the Proteas for a long time as far as the white-ball formats were concerned. Unsure of the reason Rabada didn’t feature much in the previous edition of the marquee tournament, he commended PBKS for opting to field the pacer early on in the tournament this time around and believed that him spending time in the middle would surely give him a lot of confidence going forward.

“He has almost 300 Test wickets and has been playing white-ball cricket for South Africa for such a long time. He has that experience and he’s a champion bowler. He didn’t consistently play for Punjab last season. I don’t know if it was selection or a niggle that he had, but I’m glad that Punjab has started with Rabada. This will certainly give him confidence going forward in the tournament,” Kumble said while speaking to JioCinema.

Kagiso Rabada’s IPL 2024 thus far

The pace-bowling spearhead for PBKS has had quite contrasting games in the two games his franchise have featured in up until now. In their season-opener, Rabada gave away 36 in his four overs, taking a single wicket against the Delhi Capitals. On the other hand, against RCB, he bowled significantly better, scalping two crucial wickets of RCB’s skipper Faf du Plessis and Aussie Cameron Green, giving only 23 runs in his quota. However, it came in a losing cause with RCB getting over the line in a final-over thriller in Bengaluru.

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