Sehwag felt either Rana or Gill should have batted till the end against MI.
Former Indian cricketer Virender Sehwag questioned the batting approach of Andre Russell and Dinesh Karthik after Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) suffered a shameful 10-run defeat against Mumbai Indians (MI) in an IPL 2021 game at the MA Chidambaram Stadium in Chennai on Tuesday (April 13).
On Tuesday, Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) suffered one of the unluckiest defeats, as they lost the game to the defending champions Mumbai Indians (MI) from a winning position where they needed 31 runs off 30 deliveries with six wickets in hand in Chennai.
MI almost lost the game with KKR needing only about 30 runs to win in the last five overs with Karthik and Russell yet to bat, but it was brilliant efforts by Jasprit Bumrah and Trent Boult that brought a miraculous 10-run win for the five-time IPL champions over KKR in Chennai.
Russell, who is known to be a big hitter and Dinesh Karthik miserably failed to finish the game for the KKR, as they consumed 26 balls to put just 17 runs on the board, and eventually, the two-time IPL champions fell 10 runs short of their winning target against MI on Tuesday.
While Karthik remained unbeaten for 8 off 11 balls, the West Indian all-rounder was dismissed by Boult for 9 runs off 15 balls in the game and Sehwag leveled their performance as “shameful” while questioning the intent of KKR batsmen in the last IPL 14 contest against MI.
Sehwag said on Cricbuzz: “Eoin Morgan had given a statement that they will play that way (with positive intent) after the first game but it didn't look like that when Andre Russell and Dinesh Karthik came in to bat.
The way Russell and Karthik batted, it felt like they planned to take the game till the end and win it. But that didn’t happen. The batters who came before them – be it Shakib Al Hasan, Eoin Morgan, Shubman Gill, or Nitish Rana – all of them played with positive intent.”
He further opined either Nitish Rana or Shubman Gill should have played till the end to take KKR over the line against MI. He added, “Either Rana or Gill should have batted till the end. They had seen what had happened in the MI innings, despite getting off to a good start they could only manage 152.”
Saying KKR has explained how to lose a game from a winning position with the shameful defeat, Sehwag noted: “Kolkata Knight Riders just lost the game which was almost won at one stage. When Russell came into bat, KKR needed 30 runs in 27-odd balls. Dinesh Karthik batted till the end but couldn’t win the game. That’s a shameful defeat.”
He concluded, “The runs per ball difference wasn’t much except for the last couple of overs. We saw how to lose a game that is almost won. You hardly get any game where you are chasing 152 and you need to score 36-odd runs in 6 overs with 6-7 wickets in hand.
In such scenarios, teams prefer to end the game quickly to improve their net run rate. But KKR failed to do that and hampered their net-run rate.”