Harshit Rana, a young paceman of Kolkata Knight Riders has recently shared a heartwarming anecdote involving the co-owner of the franchise Shah Rukh Khan after their victorious IPL 2024 campaign.
Rana had a breakthrough season and played a vital role in KKR’s third title win with 19 wickets in 13 matches.
However, his dream campaign was not smooth sailing all through. During the match against Delhi Capitals at Eden Gardens, he copped a one-match ban for Level 1 offence under Article 2.5 of the Code of Conduct of IPL.
After taking Porel’s wicket, the young pacer gestured animatedly towards Abhishek Porel of DC for which he was given his second penalty this season. Before that, Rana was fined sixty percent of his match fees for blowing kisses to Sunrisers Hyderabad batsman
Mayank Agarwal
Having thought through how he felt about it following suspension; at the age of 22 Harshit Rana told about an interesting conversation with Shahrukh Khan. The Bollywood star cheered him on when Harshit was feeling down promising to assist him get back to normalcy.
“Yeah! After I had been banned for one game, I felt very bad but then Shah Rukh sir came up to me and said “Tu tension mat le ye waali celebration Trophy ke saath karenge” (Don’t worry we will celebrate this with the trophy) He promised me and made sure that we did that with the trophy and our team.” – Harshit explained to Indian Express
Shah Rukh Khan kept his promise when KKR won their fourth IPL title as he led them into flying kiss celebration. With this gesture not only did they keep their word but also they were united during some kind of happiness that was shown between us by means such as flying kisses.
Rana had a great final against Sunrisers Hyderabad. He took two wickets for 24 runs in his four overs, including a rare maiden over in the summit clash. His contributions were vital to KKR’s win.
In the aftermath of Final, left-arm seamer Mitchell Starc commended the young paceman during an interview, noting how he had grown and become confident throughout this season.
“Throughout this IPL Harshit is learning his skill sets and what they are capable of doing. It looks like he is quite confident with himself. He started his season under SRH as the second-best team for which he has been bowling some tough overs as well as few crucial last overs and picked up good amount of wickets this season too”, said Starc.
