KKR woes in IPL 3.............!

Bollywood Badshah owned Kolkata Knight Riders had a turbulant outing in the first and second editions of the premium tournament...Indian Premier League (IPL).

The franchaisee management went into a 'complete overhaul' of the unit by changing the entire support staff, changing the captain of the team and also the color of the team jersey.

'Lady Luck' seemed to smile on the team when Saurav Ganguly led KKR started their campaign in the on-going third edition of IPL.

In the season's inaugural match, KKR beat the winner of the second edition of IPL, Deccan Chargers, in their own backyard. Later on they followed this victory with another one by defeating the runners-up of the second edition, Royal Challengers, Bangalore, playing them in the Garden of Eden at Kolkata.

When everything seemed to be falling in place for KKR, diasaster seemed to strike. They lost three games on a trot. These defeats set them on the backfoot and KKR found the going a bit tough.

The main problem plauging the team is that they are unable to put up a proper Playing XI that can go on to win games for KKR.

Saurav Ganguly, who opened the innings, was himself not scoring big runs, his strike rate hovered around 100 at a time when the openers in other teams were boasting of a whooping 160+.

Chris Gayle joining the team was supposed to provide the necessary momentum for registering victories. Unfortunately Gayle could not show the same kind of 'fire power' for which he is known for.

Gayle's failure at the top and Ganguly not firing full throttle, put pressure on the middle order which, unable to cope up with the demand of the situation, gave in, more often than not.

If batting was an eyesore, the bowling section was not far behind. Ishant Sharma, Shane Bond, Ajit Agarkar on whom the pace bowling depended could not trouble the opposition batsmen and all of them went for 'big runs'. The oppositon batsmen thrashed these bowlers to every nook and corner of the park and beyond too.

Only Charl Langervelt, Mural Karthik and Ashok Dinda could have some impact on the oppostion batsmen but that was not enough to win games for the team.

Charl Langervelt had to warm the benches more too often on account of the playing rules permtting only four non-Indian players to be included in the Playing XI.

Since the Indian talents in batting, viz, Wriddhiman Saha, Rohan Gavaskar, Cheteshwar Pujara etc could not contribute much in the few games that they played, KKR team management had to rely on the non-Indian players like Angello Mathews, David Hussey, Chris Gayle, Brad Hodge etc to pile up the runs but that too did not click well.

Brendon MacCullum joining the team was expected to provide the much needed big score on the board but he is yet to click and make an impact or whatsoever.

It is felt that the team management consisting of the coach, Dav Whatmore, assistant coach, Vijay Dahia and the skipper, Saurav Ganguly need to put their heads together and come out with a Playing XI that will deliver.

Dropping of Iqbal Abdullah after playing him in only one game (in which he made a great impact) is quite unexplainable.

It is not absolutely unclear as to why two fulltime spinners were not played when most of the pitches were taking a 'good turn' and the other teams were benefitting with opening the bowling attack with spinners.

Hope better sense will prevail on the team management and they would work out the ideal combination in the remaining two games against Rajasthan Royals and Mumbai Indians............both in the home ground, at Eden Gardens..........!

Subu