It's important leading into the World Cup, says Joe Denly about his IPL stint with KKR

Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) recruit, the 33-year-old Joe Denly believes that the marquee T20 league will provide a platform for him to impress the national selectors ahead of the World Cup. The English top-order batsman and the occasional leg-spinner was bought by the KKR franchise for his base price of Rs 1 crore in the IPL 2019 auction. He will be eyeing to make a mark in his maiden stint.

Denly, who made his international debut for England around ten years ago, recently made his Test debut in the West Indies and also played the T20s in the Caribbean scoring 32 runs in two innings and helping England win the series 3-0. He did not get to bat in the third rubber.

He desperately wants to leave an impression playing for the KKR ahead of the mega event back home soon after the IPL.  I want to come here and play as many games as I can. It’s important leading into the World Cup. Hopefully, I get some game-time here and can contribute to some good performances. And then hopefully the England selectors will be watching them,” Denly was quoted saying, by CricketNext.

Even though Joe Denly was a part of England’s ODI squad, he is yet to cement his place in the playing XI, especially with such a huge gap between his last appearance and now. Overall, Denly has represented England nine times in the 50-over format. In his absence from international Cricket, he played white-ball cricket for Kent to become one of the vital cogs for their in their run to the final of the One-Day tournament.

Denly speaks about World Cup

Speaking about the World Cup back home, Joe Denly felt that it will be a great tournament with a lot of good teams participating and went on to say that the pressure will be on the other teams and not on England.

“If you see it as a pressure it can be. But for us, we understand that there will be some very good teams in the World Cup, there is no doubt about that. We will just be focussing on trying to produce our best cricket each game we play. Hopefully, that leads to success,” he added.

Denly was handed a chance to enter into the World Cup mix during England’s tour of Sri Lanka last year when he replaced injured Liam Dawson. Since then, he has been taken into consideration and it will be interesting to see if he makes it to the final 15.

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