Against the Kings XI Punjab, the Kolkata Knight Riders will get the perfect opportunity to strengthen their league standing at the Eden Gardens on Saturday. They will be looking to win this game without much of hiccups.
At best, the Kings can be the party poopers. But KKR are well prepared for that. They want to keep winning at home and the confidence of this Gautam Gambhir led side is sky-high. They don’t want to waste time against the Kings. They mean business and nothing else
As far as the Kings are concerned, it more or less certain that they will be one of the lowest ranked teams this year. Nothing seemed to have worked for them.
They made changes to their playing XI, dropped a few senior cricketers and even got an astrologer to fix their problem of not performing. Still, they lost eight matches and will have to play out of their skin to avoid a few more defeats.
Kings’ story is quite a fairytale if you look at it closely. It was only last year when they were the second best team in the IPL and with the same set of players; they are on the verge of becoming the worst team in the competition this season.
The biggest reason attributed for such a dismal performance is their loss of form of the batsmen. They started off their innings smoothly, but didn’t maximize their initial starts. It was only captain George Bailey, who scored a few runs. Otherwise, the entire batting squad lacked consistency.
Even in the bowling department, the form of Mitchell Johnson was scratchy, as if he is struggling with his fitness. The way he was handled by Royal Challengers Bangalore’s Chris Gayle in Kings’ last encounter, Johnson hardly looked like the same bowler who was been one of the factors behind Australia’s recent success in all forms of the game in world cricket.
From here, it will be interesting to see if Kings’ team management will persist with Johnson or will rest him for the KKR match.
