I love playing under pressure: Nitish Rana

Kolkata: Kolkata Knight Riders batsman Nitish Rana, who bagged the Man of the Match award in their 71-run win over Delhi Daredevils last night, said he relishes the challenge of playing under pressure. “It was an important game for us since we had lost the last two. My performance is better under pressure. I love playing under pressure,” Rana said.

Rana held the KKR innings together with a 35-ball 59, a knock that embodied poise and panache in equal measure as his team posted a tall 200/9 before bundling out Delhi for 129 with more than five overs to spare. KKR returned to winning ways after two successive defeats against Sunrisers Hyderabad and Chennai Super Kings. This was their second victory from four matches and the former Mumbai Indians batsman played a crucial role.

Asked about his innings the 24-year-old played down his role and said it was a team effort as everyone fulfilled their responsibilities. “I don’t think I played such a huge role, everyone’s been assigned a certain responsibility, I just had to fulfil that, so did the others,” a modest Rana said.

“Everyone has made a contribution. Take for example, Kuldeep’s two wickets - Rishabh Pant and Glenn Maxwell. Those wickets were very important at that point of time,” he said.

Crediting Andre Russell for being the game-changer, DD bowling coach Sridharan Sriram felt his team leaked runs and a score of 170-180 would have been a “par score”. “The way they got 200 was a bit too much on this wicket. I think 170-180 was a par score. That Russell blitz in the middle took the game away,” Sriram said.

“His innings overshadowed Rana’s. Had Russell got out earlier, we would have still got them under 160. Rana wasn’t going to be that dangerous compared to what Russell did,” he added.