Legendary Sunil Gavaskar feels the expectations are huge from Rinku Singh after a bright start to his T20I career as he is likened to Yuvran Singh. Singh has scored 180 runs in six T20I innings at a blistering strike rate of 187.5 and he has shown the skills to take up the finisher role for the national team.

Singh scored 105 runs in four innings against Australia in a recent series at an average of 52.50 and a strike rate of 175. The left-hander scored a blistering knock of 46 runs off just 29 balls in the fourth game against the Aussies to help India post 174 runs.

Meanwhile, Singh had done a fine job while playing for the Kolkata Knight Riders in the IPL. The left-hander has scored 725 runs in 31 IPL matches at an average of 36.25 and a strike rate of 142.16.

“Now he’s part of an India team. And now there’s so much, so many high expectations of them. They are now expecting him to be another Yuvraj Singh. Rinku Singh – Yuvraj Singh. So if you can do even a fraction of what Yuvraj did for Indian cricket, then he will have done wonderfully well,” said Gavaskar while speaking to Star Sports.

The former Indian captain added that Singh has the belief he can succeed at the top level and he would want to carry the good show against South Africa.

“Talent – it’s not given to everybody. You can love the game. You can play all day, but sometimes you know you might not quite have the talent, but he has the belief that he could do it, and that’s what he’s done over the last 2-3 years. Again here in the IPL, he was in and out of a lot of teams when he finally got the opportunity and the way he grabbed it (was amazing),” said Gavaskar.

After his impressive start to T20I career, Singh has received a maiden call-up for the ODI series against South Africa.