Ahmedabad: Gujarat Titans (GT) batter Abhinav Manohar has expressed his belief that Noor Ahmad will be as good as his fellow countryman Rashid Khan once he gains more experience.
The 18-year-old Afghan spinner has excelled for Titans in the IPL 2023. After registering figures of 2/18 in the seven-run win over Lucknow Super Giants (LSG), Titan’s mystery spinner worked his magic in GT’s 55-run thumping win over Mumbai Indians (MI) at the Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad.
Noor, who completed 50 T20 wickets on the day, claimed the dangerous duo of Cameron Green and Tim David in a space of two deliveries. He also got the wicket of Suryakumar Yadav off the final ball of his spell.
Besides Noor, senior leg-spinner Rashid was impressive against MI as he returned with figures of 2/27. Praising the Afghan duo, Manohar admitted that both Rashid and Noor are tough to pick in the nets.
“Rashid and Noor are really tough to pick in the nets. It’s been a year and a half and I can’t pick Noor in the nets so I’m sure for a new batter playing from some other team is very hard to pick him. He’s just not got enough experience to play matches but once he gets that experience he’ll be as good as Rashid Khan,” Manohar said in a post-match press conference.
Manohar exhibited some fantastic power-hitting, smacking it out of the park with ease against MI and stitched a stunning 71-run partnership off 35 balls with David Miller (46 off 22) to help GT post 207/6 in their 20 overs. Chasing the target, MI were restricted to 152/9 in front of Titan’s disciplined.
Speaking on GT’s performance, the batter said: “To be honest I feel it was easier to bat in the second innings because of the dew but our bowlers really bowled well and they lost a few wickets early on which didn’t allow the batsmen to come out and play their game.”
Another clinical show against the Mumbai Indians, the Titans ascended to the second spot in the points table with this big win Tuesday and halfway through the league stages, they now have 10 points in their kitty.
IANS