We’re roughly two-thirds into this season’s IPL campaign, and few, if any, would’ve expected MI, CSK and KKR (the holy trinity of the league in terms of titles won) to be languishing in the bottom half of the table. KKR had an absolutely horror start to the campaign, but seemed to have turned the corner after wins over RR and SRH, both of whom were in the top four at the time of the wins. But there’s a long, long way to go if Abhishek Nayar’s men are to have genuine playoff aspirations. Here are some talking points from their campaign so far
Lack of firepower at the top
Unlike Punjab, Rajasthan, RCB and SRH, KKR have struggled for firepower at the top. They were hoping for Finn Allen to have the type of impact that he did against South Africa in the semi-finals of the World Cup in Kolkata, but the Black Caps star has blown hot and cold this season, as has team mate Tim Seifert.
Skipper Ajinkya Rahane has tried, but attacking in the powerplay isn’t exactly his natural game, and as a result, KKR have been unable to match the 70-80/1 starts in the powerplay that the others seem to be obtaining with ease.
This puts a lot of pressure on their middle order and despite having a fair bit of attacking talent on paper (Green, Powell, Rinku, Ramandeep, Raghuvanshi), they haven’t been able to blow their opposition out of the game with the bat.
Harshit’s injury and Pathirana’s absence hurts KKR
Harshit Rana would’ve filled a big hole for KKR- an attacking fast bowler also capable of scoring runs in the lower order. The whole Mustafizur saga, plus Pathirana’s absence due to injury, has been another major issue, forcing them to go with a mostly Indian pace attack which has tried their best, but isn’t world-class.
Tall Zimbabwean pacer Blessing Muzabarani did a decent job in the early part of the campaign, picking up four against SRH, but KKR’s lack of batting firepower and the nature of the Eden pitch means that he’s mostly had to watch from the sidelines. He would’ve probably thrived more at a venue like Ahmedabad, where Gujarat Titans, with their tall bowlers (Siraj, Rabada and Holder) have done well.
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Cameron Green didn’t bowl in the early part of KKR’s campaign as well, limiting the bowling options available to skipper Rahane. Green has certainly done his job with the bat, producing quick-fire cameos, but for the price that KKR paid, they’d expect him to bowl too. He’s started to do so with a limited workload, and will be key to their chances going forward.
This has put a lot of pressure on the spin duo of Sunil Narine and Varun Chakravarthy. Varun has been inconsistent- he was struggling in the latter stages of the World Cup too. If the pitch has assisted spin, the duo have done well, and it’s in those games that KKR have been competitive.
This is one example below- Narine and Varun go for 40 in their eight overs and pick up five wickets between them; the pacers go for 115 in their 12 (nearly 2x the run rate)
Upcoming games
KKR have a double-header against DC (home and away) that could prove vital to both teams’ hopes. Apart from those two, they play RCB away and GT and MI at home. Win four of these five, and they could still probably sneak into the playoffs- the point they picked up thanks to rain against an in-form Punjab outfit might help too.
There’s also work to be done on the NRR front- that minus 0.5 needs to go into the positive, and that will need some real effort from KKR in the latter part of their campaign.