New Delhi: Mukul Chowdhury announced his arrival on the IPL stage with a brilliant innings to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat in front of a packed Eden Gardens crowd. The 21-year-old wicketkeeper-batsman hit an unbeaten 27-ball 54 with seven sixes and two fours against KKR, giving Lucknow Supergiants a thrilling three-wicket win on Thursday. The knock not only gave LSG their second win of the season but also thrust them into the spotlight.Head Coach of LSG Justin Langer Praising Mukul, calling him a ‘great athlete’ with a ‘sharp mind’, and even compared his running between the wickets to that of Virat Kohli.“We’ve played some practice games, and the way he talks about the game is like he’s playing 300 games, so he’s got some strength, he’s a great player, and he’s got a quick mind, a very curious mind and wants to get better. He went and worked on the short ball. We’ve been practicing with him every day,” Langer said of practice. JioHotstar.
He also revealed how his team analyst Shrinivas Chandrasekaran was instrumental in getting Chowdhury on board.“We saw him in a training camp a few months ago. There’s a lot of talent in this country. Shrinivas, our data analyst, got a real voice that said, ‘Coach, we’ve got to get this kid.’Asked about his thought process when LSG needed 54 off the last 24 balls, Langer said, “I was probably thinking about what I was going to say to my players. I thought we bowled brilliantly on that wicket, we were brilliant.“I actually wrote it down, and regardless of whether we won or lost, our bowling was excellent, and our fielding was elite. So, I was really happy with that, but we also talked about taking responsibility, and we saw a 22-year-old kid taking responsibility. What an effort that was.”Langer believes that pulling off such a heist early in the tournament acts as a ‘magic tonic’ for the team’s morale. “If you win a close one, it gives you a little bit of confidence, doesn’t it? It doesn’t matter if you do it with the ball or with the bat, that hard win is like a magic tonic. So, hopefully, it’s a little bit of a confidence booster that we liked at the start of the season, and we’ve left a lot in our game.“
