Kolkata Knight Riders ended their 15-year wait for an individual century in the Indian Premier League (IPL) after Venkatesh Iyer reached the triple-digit score in the match against Mumbai Indians on Sunday. Iyer became the first batter since Brendon McCullum (in 2008) to score a hundred in an IPL match. Seeing Iyer go all guns blazing, former England and Royal Challengers Bangalore star Kevin Pietersen went ga-ga over the all-rounder, calling the capped India star a '360 kind of a player'.
Iyer looked in sublime form as he scored 104 off 51 balls. But, the all-rounder didn't get much help from other batters, with Andre Russell's 11-ball 21 being the second-highest score. Yet, it was enough to take the team's score to 185.
Lauding Iyer, Pietersen recalled his first impression of the player. "He is a tall guy; he stands on top of the bounce because of his height. I'm very impressed with the way he played off the back foot too, and he also doesn't get bogged down by the spinners. He is a 360 kind of player", he said on Star Sports.
"He is not afraid to play all around the ground. It was in Dubai that we first saw him in the IPL where he lit the stage up when he played a couple of pull shots and a couple of drives. I looked at him and thought 'Okay, this guy has some star quality' and today, we have seen it", the former RCB star added.
As for the match, Mumbai Indians barely looked in trouble as they chased down the target of 186 runs with more than two overs to spare. Ishan Kishan and Suryakumar Yadav were the top-scoring batters for the hosts, with scores of 58 and 43 respectively. Rohit Sharma, interestingly, had come into the game as an Impact Substitute.
source https://sports.ndtv.com/cricket/360-kind-of-player-ex-rcb-batter-kevin-pietersen-bowled-over-by-kkr-all-rounder-3953268
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