Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) head coach Brendon McCullum has opened up about Sunil Narine's absence in the ongoing 14th edition of the Indian Premier League (IPL 2021) after KKR’s 38-run defeat against Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) in Chennai.
On Sunday, April 18, Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) lost its second IPL 14 game of their three encounters, thanks to swashbuckling batting from AB de Villiers (76*) and Glenn Maxwell (78) followed by stunning bowling efforts from Kyle Jamieson (3/41), Yuzvendra Chahal (2/34) and Harshal Patel (2/17) to thrash the two-time IPL champions.
With the defeat against RCB, the KKR slumped to the sixth position on the IPL 2021 points table. Following the loss, McCullum has hinted at Narine’s inclusion in the KKR’s playing XI for the Mumbai leg by saying the management is likely to field fresh legs for their upcoming IPL 14 matches in Mumbai.
The KKR head coach also revealed that Narine was not match-fit for the previous matches in the ongoing IPL 2021 but was considered for their last game against RCB but the management decided to go with Shakib Al Hasan because of his batting on Sunday.
McCullum said during a virtual press conference: “Sunil Narine stood on the rope before our first game which means he has had an injury where he was not 100 percent fit. He certainly comes into our calculations, he was touch and go for this game against RCB but we opted for Shakib who has been good for us and he gives us an extra bit of batting.
After three games, the guys have played well, we have not got the results, we probably would need some fresh legs for slightly different wickets in Mumbai.”
He added, “We probably expect to make one or two changes in our next game, but overall I think, we have shown we have a good chance in this tournament if we tidy up. There was some tremendous batting from Maxwell and ABD on the surface which was probably the best we have seen in Chennai, but it was still tricky at times but both these batsmen took the surface out of the equation.”
Meanwhile, the KKR head coach also revealed by his captain Eoin Morgan didn’t hand the ball to Varun Chakravarthy after his 2 overs in the powerplay against RCB despite, he had dismissed Virat Kohli and Rajat Patidar in his 12 balls and even he was looking threatening to pick up more wickets.
At the start, the RCB was at 9/2 in the second over, but Maxwell and De Villiers took the RCB to 204/4 in the allotted 20 overs against KKR and former New Zealand captain felt they would have bowled Varun for an extra over at the start when Glenn Maxwell had just come out to bat.
Explaining the reason behind the move, McCullum said: “Yeah, look, in hindsight if we had our time again we probably would have bowled Varun Chakravarthy in the next over when Maxwell had just come out to bat. But look we were trying to save Varun's overs for AB de Villiers as well when he came to the crease.
In retrospect, we should have bowled him for another over but there were many other aspects where we couldn't just tidy up which would have given us a much better chance against a confident team like RCB.”
He signed off, “In the past, we have not been made to plan much as Maxwell has not been in top form but it appears, he has come this year with a really refreshed attitude. He is taking the game on, we have seen him being successful in the Big Bash and Australia. He took the game away from us in a crunch situation but if we had our time again, we would have tried few different things.”
Notably, KKR will next take on MS Dhoni-led Chennai Super Kings (CSK) on Wednesday.
(With ANI Inputs)
