IPL: Mukul magic! LSG's new power hitter keeps date with destiny
KOLKATA : Mukul Choudhary was destined to be a cricketer even before he was conceived. His father Dalip, himself a big cricket fan, had decided before his marriage that if he had a son, he would make him a cricketer. On Thursday, Mukul played the sort of knock which can propel an IPL cricketer to stardom in one night.
In the process, he also fulfilled his father’s long-cherished dreams. Chasing 182 runs to win, Lucknow Super Giants were tottering at 128/7 in the 16th over. It was then that Mukul decided to stamp his presence on the big stage.
“When Ayush bhai (Badoni) got out, I knew I was the one who had to do whatever needed to be done. I wanted to take the game close and wasn’t thinking about winning or losing,” he said. The 21-year-old hit seven sixes on a wicket which the Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) skipper Ajinkya Rahane described as “not easy” to “play big shots on”.
And Mukul was not used to playing under lights. “This is just my second match under lights,” he confessed after his third IPL match. But then, Mukul has been hitting those big ones every day for years now.
“My body has a bit more natural power, but I practice hitting 100 to 150 sixes daily. It develops if you keep practising regularly. For the last five-six months specifically, I’ve been working a lot on it, so it’s now developed,” Mukul said.