IPL 2018: Happy to Finish Not Out And Get the Team Home - Chris Lynn

Unlike last year or his reputation, Chris Lynn has not managed his usual manner this season. However, the new facet of his batting would please the Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) team management.

With the ever-dependable Gautam Gambhir, not a part of the team anymore, the Knight Riders needed a calm presence at the top of the order and Lynn is doing that job brilliantly.

On Sunday (April 29), he played an uncharacteristic unbeaten knock of 62 to guide Knight Riders to an emphatic win over Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB).

Despite facing difficulties against spinners this season, Lynn did well against Yuzvendra Chahal and Murugan Ashwin at an M. Chinnaswamy track which literally spun miles.

With Lynn’s abilities to tong the pacers well known, Bangalore skipper Virat Kohli did not hesitate in deploying spinners against him as the game progressed.

However, Lynn had his plans sorted against the tweakers. The Australian solely relied on sweep shots to negate the spinners. It was not the fluent and flowing innings from him but was mighty effective. He scored his fifty off 42 balls, the slowest of his 23 Twenty20 fifties.

The Knight Riders chased down the 176-run target in the last over. In Particular, the win was their fourth of the campaign, taking them to fourth place in the points table.

Speaking after the game, Lynn opened up on his uncharacteristic knock.

“Early with the new ball, it was the easiest time to bat. You had Sunil at the other end taking off the pressure. It was important to knock down a few before the rain break as it was expected to play a part. So, against a couple of quality spinners, the ball turning, you had to grind away. Wasn’t your typical T20 game of cricket with the ball flying around and for me, it were the sweep shots,” said Lynn.

The two-time IPL champions employed the usual strategy of one batsman holding an end up and the other going hard against the bowlers.

It was Lynn, who played the anchor while Sunil Narine and then Robin Uthappa did the attacking. After Narine scored a quickfire 27, Uthappa provided the innings the impetus by smashing 36 with the help of three fours and as many sixes.

“It (the wicket) was challenging. We have one bloke at one end anchoring the innings and then one at the other chipping in with quick runs. It was important for Robbie to come and take pressure off with the spinners bowling. He is a class player. As I said that he scored a couple of boundaries to get the momentum back. In the past, we’d lose back-to-back wickets. But tonight we didn’t do that. We retained momentum for the majority of the game,” said Lynn.

Lynn’s batting this season is not as per his reputation. And the hard-hitting Australian reasoned his spell on the sidelines behind it.

“It hasn’t been as free-flowing as I would have liked. I am coming back after a couple of injuries so I haven’t really hit the ground running. Maybe my body didn’t allow that early on but it is coming. I have started to find a bit of momentum, which is important especially at the back-end of the tournament,” Lynn remarked.

Concluding, Chris Lynn expressed his happiness to take his team over the line against a star-studded side like RCB.

“On a night like tonight and a wicket like tonight, it was a bit challenging to get a strike rate of 200, so the more time I am going to spend in the middle, the quicker I am going to get that (flow) back. At the moment, I am happy to finish not out and get the team home because that was what was needed. Hope I can build on the confidence at the back-end of the tournament,” he said.

Also, Read: IPL 2018: Stephen Fleming Credits Ambati Rayudu for Recent Success