Royals face uphill task against Knight Riders
KOLKATA : The phrase ‘you can’t win anything with kids’ got turned on its head by a group of young men the world came to know as ‘Fergie’s Fledglings’. The IPL is a different beast but with players who won the U-19 World
Cup last February along with youngsters such as
Nitish Rana
(24) and
Prasidh Krishna (22), Kolkata Knight Riders have made it to the playoffs in a season few gave them any chance of getting that far. Even Kuldeep Yadav is 23 but then he is a seasoned campaigner.
Just as the Fledglings had Eric Cantona, Paul Ince, Andrei Kanchelskis and Mark Hughes to handhold the young ones, KKR have Dinesh Karthik, Robin Uthappa, Andre Russell, Piyush Chawla and Sunil Narine. “That’s reassuring especially when we have a lot of youngsters…a player like Shubman Gill will be playing at this stage in his first IPL…THE way these guys have adapted has been Total matches Kolkata Knight Riders won both the matches against Rajasthan Royals in the league stage.
excellent,” said Simon Katich, KKR’S assistant coach.
This is the sixth time since 2011 when the playoffs were introduced that twice champions KKR have survived the league phase. After winning in 2008, RR, who didn’t come to the ground because of early evening rain, made that far only in 2013 before this. Add to that KKR are at home and it makes them favourites going into Wednesday’s Eliminator. “We all know in T20 it’s what happens on the night but it will be nice playing in front of our home crowd,” said Katich.
KKR go into the Eliminator having notched up a hattrick of wins --- a first this season --- and Katich said he hoped that would stand them in good stead. As should the form of Russell. He gave KKR the breakthrough when RR were zooming through the Powerplay here last week. “He is a big match player and we expect him to be ready for what, hopefully, will be a big week…,” said Katich.
After Russell dismissed Rahul Tripathi, Yadav took over and Katich said he would love to play on a wicket assisting tweakers. KKR have three of them but what could make this an intriguing contest is that RR too have as many in K Gowtham, Ish Sodhi and Shreyas Gopal.
Yes, they will be without Ben Stokes and Jos Buttler but without them RR beat Royal Challengers Bangalore.
In 2012, CSK had sneaked through to the playoffs in similar fashion and then gone on to play the final. What makes RR dangerous is that having got here somewhat fortuitously they really have nothing to lose. Not many teams use two leggies but RR could, given Shreyas Gopal’s (in pic) run of four wickets against RCB and Ish Sodhi’s been an economic addition with a googly that right-handers have struggled to pick. Lynn has anchored KKR’S batting and has got three half-centuries.
Tied s
The big men from the Caribbean could provide an interesting sub-plot to the match. Russell is known to struggle against the short ball and that could make Archer difficult to put away. Russell too is a crafty bowler and should the roles be reversed, it could make for interesting times. India mates they may be but it was Rahane’s attempted reverse sweep off Yadav that gave the Chinaman bowler his confidence back and triggered Royals’ downfall. Rahane has struggled in this IPL but is too good a player to not be able to come back.