IPL 2023: Comparison of Rinku Singh and Andre Russell's cost per run

What Andre Russell did for Kolkata Knight Riders over the years, Rinku Singh did it with ease in the ongoing IPL 2023. Courtesy of his phenomenal batting, the two-time champions won multiple matches this season and against Lucknow Super Giants on May 20 at Eden Gardens, the 25-year-old almost pulled off another heist but unfortunately failed as KKR lost the match by just one run. 

Throughout the course of the 16th edition, the Aligarh-born batter was compared with Andre Russell as the West Indies international made a name for himself by doing a similar job for KKR over the years. However, this season, Russell could score only 227 runs in 14 matches while Rinku managed to smash 474 runs in 14 matches and with that, the uncapped player is currently ninth in the IPL Orange Cap race.

Interestingly, the Kolkata-based franchise signed Rinku Singh for only INR 55 lakh and thus, his cost per run came down to INR 11603.37 this season. Andre Russell, on the other hand, was retained by KKR for INR 12 crore and for every run he scored this season, the 35-year-old took close to INR 5 lakh, which is way higher than Rinku's cost per run.

So far, Rinku has represented KKR in 31 matches and has scored 725 runs at a strike rate of 142.16. He has shown his class in domestic cricket as well and thus, many former cricketers including Harbhajan Singh and Ravi Shastri want the youngster to feature in the Indian team soon. He has looked extremely composed under pressure and has the ability to hit the ball clean and take his team home from any situation.

The 2023 season can very well prove to be the passing of the baton in the KKR camp. Russell struggled to get going while Rinku looked unstoppable in the majority of the matches. Even against LSG in their final league game of the season, Russell was struggling to score runs and ended up scoring seven runs off nine deliveries, which eventually put KKR under tremendous pressure. However, courtesy of Rinku’s 67* runs off 33 deliveries, the Knight Riders came close, otherwise LSG had them for the majority part of the second innings.