IPL 10: Have been lucky to bat alongside MS Dhoni, says Rahul Tripathi

The Rising Pune Supergiant is having a dream run in the IPL this season. All their players have been chipping in with crucial contributions in the season thus far. One man who has been a very consistent performer for them till now is the opener Rahul Tripathi. The hard-hitting Pune batsman is a fearless striker of the cricket ball. He has been taking on the opposition bowlers in the powerplay to give flying starts to RPS on most occasions.

During this season, he once had a streak of 6 consecutive innings of 30 plus scores. This is a testimony of how consistent he has been for the RPS camp. Some speculated that Rahul Tripathi is incapable of converting the starts to big scores. Tripathi silenced all his critics with a match-winning 93 that came off just 52 balls against the Kolkata Knight Riders at the packed Eden Gardens.

Such has been his dominion that the RPS team has not quite felt the repercussions of the inconsistent form of the senior opening partner Ajinkya Rahane. However, Rahul Tripathi recently conceded that batting alongside Rahane has been like a dream for him. As per the quotes in Times of India, he revealed that Rahane often comes up with pep talks that helps him do well in the matches.

“It’s a dream experience for me. I guess opening with Ajinkya bhai… He tells you little things like ‘you’re batting well’ or ‘you’ve got good intent’ and so on. Well, even if you don’t believe in yourself, you start believing when someone like Ajinkya Rahane is telling you these things,” quoted Rahul.

He further added that the atmosphere in the team has been very good off the field as well. The players keep each other entertained. He went on to say that he feels very lucky to have received the opportunity to bat alongside the former Indian skipper MS Dhoni.

“Even off the field, Faf is there, Ben is there, our team is having so much fun. I’ve also been lucky to remain not out a couple of times to find MS Dhoni join me in the middle,” he noted.