MUMBAI: So far in his nascent career, Rinku Singh has taken to international cricket like duck to water. In the ongoing T20Is series against Australia at home, the 26-year-old has chipped in vital camos-22 not out off 14 balls at Vizag, and 9-ball 31 not out at Thiruvananthapuram to provide more evidence of how dangerous he can be in T20 cricket.
Can the man who till now has a strike rate of 216.94 and average of 128.00 in seven T20Is, do well in ODIs too?
“Yes, he’s a very sensible cricketer. What I liked about him is that he’s a very calculative cricketer. If you talk to him, and if you watch his batting, you can see that he always plays with a calculative approach. He doesn’t just go (for his shots), but he has the belief that he can finish the game in the past one or two overs. And he’s done that, which everybody has seen,” former India wicketkeeper Chandrakant Pandit, Rinku’s coach at the Kolkata Knight Riders, his IPL team for whom he pulled many a heist last season to break into the India T20I team, told TOI at the MCA’s BKC ground on Monday.
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Pandit is in the city as the head coach of Madhya Pradesh, who are playing their league stage matches of the Vijay Hazare One-day Trophy here.
Pandit, though, felt that Rinku is best suited for the role of a finisher, and it may not be a good idea to play him as a top-order batsman.
“No, he's a player who can bat at No 5 and especially in the shorter formats, in which he’s also a good finisher. So, his ability has to be utilized. There’s no point in sending him in front (top). His game is not required there (in the top-order). His game is required after the 12th over (in a T20 match), as a finisher, which he has the ability, and we know that,” said the experienced coach.
Pandit said that it was Rinku’s “self-belief” which first impressed him about the youngster at KKR.
“The one thing that I like about him is that during an (IPL) match once, he came and told me that 'why don’t you push me in the front? Have confidence in me that I can score runs. So, that kind of a character and self-belief, what any coach or any team (likes). It’s a good thing to see that after he has done well in the IPL, people started expecting (him) to do well, and he has maintained that. And he has maintained that not only in domestic cricket, but he’s displaying it at the international level as well,” said the 62-year-old.