Despite the loss on Friday (October 16), Eoin Morgan is expecting a "smooth transition" as captain within the Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) set-up after Dinesh Karthik decided to step down from his position midway through the IPL 2020.
Speaking over the same at the post-match press conference following the eight-wicket loss to Mumbai Indians (MI) in Abu Dhabi, Morgan said the swap hasn't been too difficult, given the relationship he has been able to develop with Karthik through this stint.
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“Within a team of leaders, given that myself and Dinesh were leaders in captain and vice-captain, I think there will be a smooth transition from here. It took a lot of courage for DK and actually quite a lot of selflessness to come forward and recognise within himself that he wanted to focus on his batting and take the vice captaincy up,” said Morgan, as quoted by PTI.
"Therefore, I became captain and it is a great opportunity for me to lead the team. Like I said, within our group of players, we have a number of leaders and we will need throughout this competition," he added.
On the day, KKR's batting struggled against some quality bowling from the MI attack, managing just 148/5 in the first half, which also they could reach only because of Pat Cummins' (53*) superlative half-century and a support act from Morgan (39*) himself after the top-order had failed badly.
"That’s putting it very politely," he said. "With the batting early on, we made a few mistakes. Mumbai Indians bowled really well and proved exactly why they have been one of the form teams in the tournament so far."
"From here on, there is another area of improvement that we need to make strides on. We”re just past the half-way stage in the tournament. There is no better time to turn things around," Morgan added.
Morgan's batting position was once again a cause of debate, with him coming a spot below Karthik, who scored just 4 runs at No.4, leaving doubts whether KKR aren't utilising both their key batters in the middle-order properly.
The new captain, however, said the batting order depends entirely on the situation they walk into.
“Given the strength and depth we have in our batting-line, and the different skill-levels and skill-sets that we have, we have to be as adaptable as possible going forward," said Morgan.
"With playing against different opposition, there are different match-ups that we feel we can make the most of our batting line-up, and hence the continued change in the order," he added.
In the second half, MI dominated their way past the KKR total on the back of another wonderful knock from their opener Quinton de Kock (78*). Only finger-spinner Varun Chakravarthy (1/23) could boast of respectable figures among the KKR bowlers.
