IPL 2021: "He gave more runs in one over than he scored in the entire tournament" - Aakash Chopra questions RCB for picking Dan Christian
Aakash Chopra has termed Dan Christian a futile investment for the Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) considering the Aussie all-rounder's indifferent returns in IPL 2021.
Christian conceded 22 runs in the first over he bowled in last night's Indian Premier League eliminator encounter against the Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR). It was more than the 14 runs he scored in the seven innings he played for the franchise in the tournament.
While reviewing RCB's loss to KKR in a video shared on his YouTube channel, Aakash Chopra questioned the franchise's reason for picking Dan Christian. He elaborated:
"The team will be left slightly behind if you try to find lucky people. Your investment in Dan Christian, that was just futile in the end. He has scored very few runs, you can talk about the entire tournament and when he came to bowl, he gave more runs in one over than he scored in the entire tournament."
The cricketer-turned-commentator added that Dan Christian should not have been picked just for his title-winning luck in other franchise leagues. Chopra said:
"Dan Christian's inclusion in this team just defied a bit of logic. You were expecting a lot from him and I agree with Virender Sehwag's tweet that when you pick players for luck, end of the day it backfires slightly. This game actually proved that."
Virat Kohli recently revealed that Dan Christian was part of the RCB leadership group in IPL 2021. The 38-year-old was picked along with fellow Australian Glenn Maxwell to ease the burden of responsibility on Kohli and AB de Villiers on the field.
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Aakash Chopra on Dan Christian's game-changing over
Aakash Chopra highlighted that Virat Kohli had made the wrong call to bowl Dan Christian against Sunil Narine. He reasoned:
"The game changed when wickets had fallen and Sunil Narine came to bat. He had made runs on this ground and this pitch against fast bowling. He had done it against Rabada but captain Kohli brings Dan Christian. I thought that over was not required."
The former KKR player concluded by stating that Dan Christian conceded more runs in an over than Mohammed Siraj, Yuzvendra Chahal and Harshal Patel did in their entire spells. Chopra observed:
"22 runs are scored in that over, three sixes and that's it, the game changed. 22 runs are actually conceded in an entire spell when you are defending 139. Siraj gave 19 runs in his four overs, Harshal gave 19 in four overs, Yuzi Chahal gave 16 runs in four overs."
Dan Christian was given the ball again to bowl the last over when KKR required seven runs with four wickets in hand. However, he was hit for a boundary off the first ball by Shakib Al Hasan as the Eoin Morgan-led eased across the line.