IPL 2021: Sunil Gavaskar heaps praise over CSK’s Suresh Raina, says, ‘What a comeback!”- Cricket Legend Sunil Gavaskar was impressed with Suresh Raina’s batting performance in the opening match against Delhi Capitals. The latter slammed 54 runs off just 36 balls which included 4 sixes and 3 boundaries.
“Very tough, very tough because you know the ideal is such that the fans are very, very demanding. They don’t expect you to fail, they want to succeed in every game. Raina would have felt the pressure when he came back. That’s why he started off slowly. He was pretty much scoring at a run-a-ball and after that he took off,” Gavaskar told Star Sports.
“Suresh Raina, well played. What a comeback in CSK colours!”
He added that Raina played a high-quality bowling attack of R Ashwin and Amit Mishra.
“I think against a quality spinner like R Ashwin, you can’t stay in the crease. You have to try and go out of the crease and disorient him. And he was a bit disoriented and it showed in the way he was trying to bowl different from what he does generally. And Raina, when he hits it out of the middle, it generally goes into the stands. And that’s what we saw today,” Gavaskar added.
During his innings, Raina ensured that CSK did not lose too many early wickets after they were tottering at 7/2 at one stage. He stitched a crucial partnership of 53 runs with the new recruit from England Moeen Ali (36).
Last year, Suresh Raina had pulled out of the IPL due to personal reasons. In his absence, Chennai Super Kings ended 7th in the points table.
He is the second leading run-scorer in IPL after Virat Kohli and the top run-getter for CSK. Raina has scored over 5,300 runs in the cash-rich league. In his absence, middle-order batsmen failed to do well. His reunion with MS Dhoni’s squad is expected to provide fruitful result in IPL 2021.
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