Bengaluru, March 30 After Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) continued their strong start to Indian Premier League (IPL) 2024 with a seven-wicket win over Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB), captain Shreyas Iyer said the team thinktank has been spot-on in their inputs about analysing wicket and sending out the necessary information.
KKR had finished seventh in IPL 2023 and ahead of the ongoing tournament, Gautam Gambhir, who captained the side to two IPL titles in 2012 and 2014, joined the franchise as the team mentor after spending two seasons in the same capacity at the Lucknow Super Giants.
Since then, with Chandrakant Pandit retained as head coach, along with Abhishek Nayar, Bharat Arun, James Foster, and Omkar Salvi keeping their respective roles in the support staff, KKR have begun strongly with two out of two wins to be at second place in IPL 2024 points table.
"It's going really well because the think-tank is vast. Everyone's inputs have been spot-on in terms of analysing the wicket and communicating information. Our communication is very strong right now," said Iyer to digital broadcasters JioCinema after the match ended.
Asked to pick the more influential performer between Sunil Narine as an opener or Andre Russell as a death bowler, both of whom played crucial roles in KKR’s win over RCB, Iyer said, "You can't choose because you're talking about bowling at the death on one end and opening on the other.”
“They're both very useful and phenomenal assets for the team because if they have a rough showing with the ball, they can make it up with the bat. This is a big positive for our team."
Chasing 183 Narine, playing in his 500th T20 match, starred with a blazing 47 off 22 balls at the top, while his opening partner Phil Salt breezed to 30 off 20 balls as KKR amassed 85/0 from their first six overs of the chase, to decide the fate of the match early in the visitors’ favour.
"I think it might be wishful thinking for him to reach 500 more (appearances) but there's no question he's a match-winner, and he's been that his entire career. It's normally with the ball where he's turned up for KKR.”
“But when he bats like this, for KKR or any team he's played for, he really takes the game away from the opposition really quickly because he's so dynamic, hitting good balls. 47 off 22 balls was really the impetus for them to be able to push in and chase these runs with 3.1 overs to spare," said Shane Watson, the IPL expert, on Narine’s blitzkrieg with the bat.
Salt entered the KKR camp after Jason Roy pulled out due to personal reasons and has played a big role with his big-hitting skills in the team’s twin wins so far. "Those first three overs, they were all really good cricket shots, really good balls at the top of the stumps.”
“But because of Philip Salt, in particular, the first couple of boundaries he hit, and then the errors started to come from the bowlers, and they started to change their pace and get a little bit too full. That’s when they could capitalize even more at the end of the powerplay,” he said.
“For an opposition bowling attack, when your best balls are still going to the boundary, that's when you're under serious pressure. That shows the calibre of Philip Salt to start things off with and then Sunil Narine, who put his foot down when he needed to," concluded Watson.
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