The sight of Matheesha Pathirana rolling his arm over in purple training gear must be a huge relief for the Kolkata Knight Riders fandom. The franchise splurged 18 crores on the Sri Lankan slinger at the auction, and were awaiting a no-objection certificate from his board upon clearance of fitness tests.
A death-overs specialist, he thrived at Chennai Super Kings in Indian Premier League 2024, bagging 13 wickets at an economy rate of 7.68 including a match-winning 4/28 against Mumbai Indians. In Pallekelle versus England, the 23-year-old produced figures of 1/18 in his full quota on an anodyne pitch.
Pathirana ran the gamut from yorkers, 148kph thunderbolts, cutters on a length to spicy bumpers. Even more impressive was the fact that he bowled two of his overs inside the PowerPlay. His comeback is key for Kolkata Knight Riders as on paper, their bowling lacks the heft that their batting now carries.
For, Mustafizur Rahman had been deemed ineligible to participate owing to the strained relations between India and Bangladesh, with Zimbabwe quick Blessing Muzarabani drafted in as replacement. Indian pros Harshit Rana and Akash Deep are out on the sidelines. Kartik Tyagi, Umran Malik, Saurabh Dubey and Vaibhav Arora are part of the pace battery but it is the resurgent pacer from Uttar Pradesh who has been the shining light so far. Tyagi’s death-bowling smarts once helped him defend just four runs in a final over of an IPL humdinger against Nicholas Pooran, Aiden Markram, Deepak Hooda and Fabian Allen.
