New Zealand opener Finn Allen has been one of their rising stars who made waves with his demolition of Australia pacers inside the Powerplay at the recently concluded T20 World Cup. Though his stay was brief, Allen managed to dent their confidence and set the base for a match-winning total, a result that eventually sealed the then defending champions Australia’s fate in the tournament.
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The 23-year-old has played 24 T20Is and scored 564 runs at an impressive strike-rate of 164.13 including a century and two fifties. Among the current crop of players, he admires India batting star Virat Kohli but adds he strives to be like Suryakumar Yadav whose 360-degree batting has made him the world’s top-ranked batter in the format in no time.
“In terms of guys that I admire, obviously the way Virat has gone about,” Allen told Hindustantimes.com. “He had a little bit of a tough time of late, and then to come out the way he has in the last few months and persevered through those challenges is very admirable. Just seeing him overcome that and finish the World Cup as the top run scorer for his country.”
He added, “I really love watching Surya play. He is the No. 1 batter in the world at the moment and for good measure, I think. He is incredible. Some of the shots he plays are out of this world and he is someone I would strive to be like for sure.”
Allen is part of the ongoing three-match T20I series with India but he fell for a duck in the second match and would want to make amends with series on the line.
He praised Indian bowling attack and called the tourists a pretty exciting side brimming with X-factors in their batting lineup despite missing a few senior players.
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“They are missing a few players and they still seem to come out with a lot of depth and some seriously quality players. It is a slightly different look to what we saw in the World Cup. But their bowling strength is top. They have got three guys in this series who can swing it both ways which is always pretty tough for any batter to combat. The way Arshdeep set the World Cup alight was pretty cool to watch not having to play against. So we are certainly looking forward to that challenge. And then obviously their batting strength. They’ve got X-Factor after X-Factor in their order. They are a pretty exciting side,” Allen said.
Allen though idolised former England cricketer Kevin Pietersen when growing up and wants to play a similar brand of cricket. “I guess the role, where it came from was, I have always idolised Kevin Pietersen growing up and watching him play his brand of cricket. Sort of wanting to take the game on and be really positive came a bit from him,” he said.
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