Tribute to Rinku Singh- Not Your Average IPL Firestarter

image-lg9mt69mRinku Singh (Source: BCCI/IPL)

It could be argued that the real power of the IPL isn’t in just bringing about the best from the powerful and noted players. 

You think that it’s about the Virat Kohli’s, MS Dhoni’s, Andre Russell’s and the Rohit Sharma’s. It is, but that’s not all there is to the IPL. 

It doesn’t end there.

The true power of the IPL is about turning talents that don’t necessarily possess the fame or the gravitas into household names. 

And for as long as the Indian Premier League is remembered, one will now remember one of its noted talents- Rinku Singh.

He won’t be forgotten. Not anytime soon. 

A product of sheer self belief. A result of not all being over when one thinks it very much is. 

God alone knows what buzzword or catchphrase Rinku Singh had in his mind when, just a few hours ago, he played an absolute blinder, mad hat of an IPL inning to leave the Titans from Gujarat stunned. 

During the lunch time, was he on a break of backbreaking action packed Hollywood bulldozers that had titles such as Carnage? Or maybe, Demolition Man was more like it? 

Regardless. 

Not always does one see 31 being scored off the final over a T20. We haven’t seen that kind of a run chase being accomplished all too often. Not even in world famous T20 leagues such as the Indian Premier League. 

Well, that doesn’t happen when an Andre Russell and Venkatesh Iyer are back in the dugout. 

Not when the man we’ve seen hit more sixes than Rinku himself, Sunil Narine departs much too soon upon arrival. 

But that’s what made Rinku Singh so utterly unmissable and so unique. 

Not a cricket that possesses a towering frame. Not a cricketer with the obvious physical appearance of a gym god who’s just hopped off the treadmill post an hour of belting the machine that today’s on-to-go youth can’t imagine their existence without. 

Rinku Singh is sheer ambition and perhaps incalculable height. 

And he put his hell-may-care attitude into play when off the very final over of the KKR run chase, he just went after Yash Dayal.

Was it the perfect over to go for the big lusty blows? 

You bet. The final six deliveries. The panic. The fading but very much present hope of going all the way. Moreover, the instant realisation that Gujarat had actually opted for their most inexperienced bowler into the attack perhaps sensing that 29 were too many runs to be hunted down. 

And maybe that’s the real beauty of T20 cricket that it’s never say never. 

Firing 5 big sixes, not normal, but convincing five half a dozen blows well over the boundary ropes, Rinku Singh, sensing there was nothing else to be lost just went for it. 

For there was really nothing there to not go after. 

In the end, you could say anything. But it doesn’t matter now. 

The freak power of belief went all the way and with much due respect to the vanquished, it ought to be said, that being a tad bit overconfident didn’t quite succeed. 

What was surprising for the onlooker and alarming to the Gujarat fan was that despite being belted for easy pickings, Yash Dayal didn’t refrain from pitching it up. 

Were we mistaken or was it very much the case that the better part of the 20th over of KKR’s batting featured full-pitched or short deliveries. 

Just what was it? 

Tell you what, none of it matters. Rinku Singh has entered the record books of the IPL for becoming the first batsman to have ever hit five sixes in the final over a run chase. 

He might not be the last. But in being the very first to enter a record book to which not even the mighty and the brutal such as Russell, AB, Virat, Maxwell or even the great Gayle belong will surely feel special. 

It’s well done. It’s well-earned. Remember the name- Rinku Singh. Not your typical IPL exploder.