Harsha Bhogle asks RPS about Tripathi and gets a quirky response

Rahul Tripathi is slowly starting to become a household name in Maharashtra. His recent 93 against a powerful Kolkata Knight Riders team raised his stocks further in his short IPL career. Tripathi decimated the KKR bowlers to all parts of the ground to secure a 4-wicket win for his franchise Rising Pune Supergiant.

RPS were struggling to get going earlier in the season when they had just 2 points after the first 4 games. Since then they have turned their season around to win 6 out of 7 and have all but sealed a spot in the playoffs. The 26-year-old has been a major contributor in RPS’s turn around. In 9 games, the right-hander has scored 352 runs at 39.11. His strike rate of 155 gives a reflection of the impact he has had at the top of the order which has certainly taken the pressure off from the likes of Steve Smith and Ajinkya Rahane.

Harsha Bhogle, a renowned cricket analyst, was impressed by Tripathi’s batting. Although he was born in Hyderabad, Bhogle lives in Mumbai and is well versed with Marathi, the native language of Maharashtra. After a series of consistent scores by Tripathi, he had earned another fan in Bhogle.

The 55-year-old used Marathi to tweet about Tripathi’s fine form: “Aho Punekar, Deccan chya kuthlya gallit lapavla hota hya Tripathi la?” which means ‘Hey Pune people, in which lane of Deccan had you hid Tripathi?’. Whenever a talent is unearthed, people do wonder about their whereabouts in the preceding seasons.

Aho Punekar, Deccan chya kuthlya gallit lapavla hota hya Tripathi la?

— Harsha Bhogle (@bhogleharsha) May 3, 2017

The Twitter account of RPS was quick to respond to Bhogle’s query: “Sadhya KKR che bowlers laple ahet sir!” This was cheeky from RPS as they meant that ‘at the moment, the KKR bowlers are in the hiding sir!’

Sadhya KKR che bowlers laple ahet sir! ?#RangWahiJungNayi #KKRvRPS https://t.co/R4TMBDSeIn

— RisingPuneSupergiant (@RPSupergiants) May 3, 2017

KKR bowlers were well and truly dispatched all around the ground by Tripathi. He was severe on Nathan Coulter-Nile and Kuldeep Yadav as he smashed 5 sixes collectively to these two, which included a hat-trick of sixes to Yadav.