When Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) participated in the IPL 2024 auction they were desperately looking for a gun pacer who could save them the embarrassment of mainly leaking too many runs at the death.
Another reason which tempted KKR to go after Starc was his ability to take wickets with the new ball - something that KKR struggled with in the previous seasons. However, the IPL 2024 season is in its mid-phase and Starc, contrary to the expectations of the team management has failed to deliver.
The Aussie speedster has only bagged seven wickets in eight games and leaked runs at an alarming rate of 11.78 per over. But the failure of Starc hasn't bothered KKR much. How so? It's because of its young pacers - Vaibhav Arora and Harshit Rana.
Vaibhav, in particular, has flown under the radar and caught opponents by surprise. In a season where batters have been hammering bowlers to all parts of the park, the Himachal Pradesh pacer has conceded runs at an economy rate of 9.05 per over.
His best bowling figures of the season came against Delhi Capitals on a belter in Vizag. The 26-year-old claimed 3/27 and helped Kolkata emerge victorious by 106 runs.
It's still early days for Vaibhav in his IPL career as he has played just 15 games in the T20 extravaganza and picked up 17 wickets at an acceptable economy rate of 9.13.
With 24 first-class games under his belt, Vaibhav has a decent amount of domestic experience and continues to impress. He has 88 first-class dismissals to his credit and averages 22.35 with the ball, including four five-fors and the same number of four-fors.
With KKR looking firm favourites to bag a spot in the playoffs, the onus will be on Vaibhav to decimate opposition batting orders with his fiery spells.
