KL Rahul Applauds Mandeep Singh's Mental Toughness

KL Rahul Applauds Mandeep Singh's Mental Toughness Kings XI Punjab (KXIP) batsman Mandeep Singh smashed a match-winning 66 recently. While matchwinning knock wasn’t a surprise, the surprise was that came two days after he lost his father and the KXIP captain KL Rahul feels that his mental toughness has transferred to the entire team as well.

His unbeaten knock against Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) on Monday helped them secured another win.

With this, they registered five wins on a row. Notably, Mandeep, who came in the squad in place of injured Mayank Agarwal, lost his father last week and attended his funeral via a video call only.

“It's so hard when you are away from your family. With the bubble, you don't have the close ones. The kind of toughness he (Mandeep) has shown has rubbed off on other boys as well. The way he played today, it makes everyone emotional. He's gone through a rough time, just to put his hand up, be there and finish the game for the team would make him proud and make his father proud,” KL Rahul said at the post-match presentation ceremony.

However, before his knock, it was their bowlers, mainly the wrist-spinners Murugan Ashwin and Ravi Bishnoi damaged KKR’s batting line up and the credit should go to their head coach Anil Kumble, who guides them so well.

“When you have Anil Kumble as the coach, it's not surprising that we are playing with two leg-spinners.

It's something that he had in his mind even before the IPL started. He always kept telling me that towards the second half or at some point that two leg-spinners is always an aggressive option,” he further added.

Meanwhile, Punjab have won all their games since when the swashbuckling batsman Chris Gayle came in the squad. It is noteworthy that, he didn’t feature in the league in the first half.

“It was a very hard decision not to play him (Chris) because he was batting really well. This is the hungriest I have ever seen him in the last 7-8 years that I have played with him. He is running his ones and twos, so that's refreshing. He's always positive, always pushing the youngsters. It's great to have someone with that much experience,” he concluded.

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