Nitish Rana, Hrithik Shokeen rivalry spills into IPL

The rivalry between two players in the Indian domestic circuit came to the fore at the IPL stage here on Sunday, with Kolkata Knight Riders’ captain Nitish Rana and Mumbai Indians’ Hrithik Shokeen engaging in a war of words in the first innings. The incident happened in the ninth over of their match at the Wankhede Stadium when the Mumbai Indians’ bowler gave an earful to Rana after dismissing the KKR captain, who stopped in his tracks to turn around and hurl some words back at the bowler.

Shokeen had Rana caught at long on by substitute fielder Ramandeep Singh, and immediately looked in the direction of the batter to say a few words. But as Rana turned back to respond to the young player’s charge at him, Mumbai Indians’ stand-in skipper Suryakumar Yadav and the senior most player in the game, Piyush Chawla, stepped in to diffuse the tension.

It must be noted that both Rana and Shokeen are teammates in the Delhi side in domestic cricket, but they are not on talking terms even in the dressing room. The flare-up that happened on Sunday afternoon was not one-off since these two players have had a history between them.

If Rana had an ordinary game with the bat, falling for five off 10 balls, Shokeen was a busy player on Sunday as after taking a sharp catch to dismiss the struggling N Jagadeesan early on off Cameron Green at cover point he returned with 4-0-34-2 while also accounting for KKR all-rounder Shardul Thakur.