IPL 2018: Dinesh Karthik hopes to lead KKR by example, after being appointed skipper for IPL 11

Robin Uthappa will be the vice captain of the team for IPL 11.

Dinesh Karthik

IPL and India veteran Dinesh Karthik was announced as Kolkata Knight Riders skipper, with Robin Uthappa being named his deputy for the IPL 2018 season.

"Virat is a captain who leads by his action. He is somebody who shows with his performance and that is something that I can try and emulate -- lead by example rather than speaking, go on the ground and show with the scores or the way I play etc," Karthik told reporters.

Karthik continued, "In terms of being aggressive captain, I am not aggressive outwardly by nature, but that does not mean I am not aggressive inside. While playing a game, I am one of those guys who dont even speak to the opponents, before the game or in the lead up to the game, these are some of the qualities which I have and these are the ways I show aggression."

Talking about the upcoming tour of Sri Lanka, Karthik said, “I look eye to eye, and do small things that matter, I may not show it from body language, but I know deep down I am thoroughly aggressive in the way I play cricket and I would like to take that forward.

Karthik had some advice for KKR’s U19 pace guns Mavi and Nagarkoti, saying, "Definitely not just concentrate on pace, that's just one aspect of fast bowling. At this stage in a situation like IPL you need variations and you need to be thinking ahead of the batsmen. We had Heath Streak as bowling coach and he was very efficient and I know he has the potential to help these youngsters and they have lot to learn from him as a bowling coach and they are in safe hands, and with somebody like Jacques Kallis, who is an all-rounder, he would be giving right advice as well."

Karthik said that KKR’s biggest strength were the three wrist spinners in Kuldeep, Chawla and Sunil Narine.

Robin Uthappa will be the vice captain of the KKR squad

He said, "In terms of wrist spinners, Piyush (Chwla) have 10 years of experience in playing the IPL and in terms of number of wickets taken by an IPL bowler, he is in the top five. Kuldeep (Yadav) of late, the performances he is producing for Indian team, so that augurs well for the team. The flavour of the season is wrist spin because it is hard to pick them and they have the ability to pick wickets, it is good that we have those three bowlers. Most teams would be jealous that we have three wrist spinners."

He further said, "The first thing would be to connect all the boys together. One of the most important thing is to get the whole group together and get the bonding going straightaway. It's always difficult in IPL sort of environment because there is not much time. It is always a challenge and we are trying to address that."

KKR CEO Venky Mysore said, "It is indeed a start of a new phase for KKR, and we are delighted that someone as experienced as Dinesh Karthik will lead the side.Robin has been an integral part of KKR since 2014 and played a crucial role in KKR winning the championship. We are fortunate to have both Dinesh & Robin in leadership roles for KKR."

(With inputs from PTI)

 
 

By Jatin Sharma - 04 Mar, 2018

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