Former India pacer Ajit Agarkar believes that Kolkata Knight Riders “will play better and a bit more consistently” having a lot of match-winners at their ranks in the next 14th edition of the Indian Premier League (IPL) in 2021.
KKR failed to qualify for the play-off of the recently concluded IPL 2020 despite having a star-studded squad including Andre Russell, Eoin Morgan, Dinesh Karthik, Sunil Narine, and Pat Cummins.
The Kolkata-based franchise finished fifth in the IPL 13 with 14 points and the Agarkar, who played for the side in 2008 IPL, said the two-time IPL champions have the potential to finish better if they stick to their players and trust the leader irrespective of the results.
KKR replaced Dinesh Karthik with Eoin Morgan in the middle of the season as captain after some poor calls and performance as skipper.
Read Also: IPL 2020: Most Valuable Player (MVP) from each franchise
Speaking on Star Sports show 'Cricket Connected', Agarkar said: “I think there are a couple of teams, CSK certainly need a little bit of restructuring. But the one team I hope plays better or plays a bit more consistently, is KKR. I think KKR certainly has a lot of match-winners in them or T20 specialists if you like. They should be doing a lot better. There were in better positions, changed the captain for some reason midway through and you could see that there was something not right in the camp.”
He signed off by saying, “I think it has happened before as well, and somehow, they scraped through to the playoffs. They have got far too good a team to be as inconsistent, T20 format is very difficult to be consistent, but they have got far too good a team to be that. So, I hope they get those things right. And especially, get the leadership, whoever it is, and stick to it during the course of the season.”
(With ANI Inputs)
