Morgan-led Knights eye consistent run

Kolkata team banks on bowling fire power to deliver goods.

Hyderabad: Winners of the 2012 and 2014 editions Kolkata Knight Riders have had an ordinary run in the last couple of years. The Shah Rukh Khan co-owned side always had the fire power in their ranks but they failed to fire in unison.While it was only Andre Russell who staged a lone battle in 2019, the 2020 season, held in UAE due to coronavirus pandemic, saw the team struggle with lack of big performances from their top players.

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The fact that none of the Knight Riders’ batsman figured in the top 10 chart gives a clear indication on how the batsmen struggled as an unit. In the bowling department too, only Varun Chakravarthy, the spinner from Chennai, took 17 wickets to be at No.8 in the chart.The management shelled out a good part of money (Rs 15.5 cr) for the Australian quick Pat Cummins ahead of the last season. However, he managed to take just 12 wickets in 14 matches. In the batting department too, it was youngster Shubhman Gill who performed well scoring 440 runs. The likes of Eoin Morgan, Nitish Rana, Dinesh Karthik and Russell failed to get runs.

A struggling Dinesh Karthik handed over the captaincy to World Cup winning England captain Morgan mid-way through the season. Morgan, now a fulltime captain, has been in India since February and hopes to lead the team from the front.Ahead of the new season, they made some smart purchases in last month’s auctions. They bought Bangladesh all-rounder Shakib Al Hasan (Rs 3.2 cr) and veteran spinner Harbhajan Singh (Rs 2 cr) along with Karun Nair (Rs 50 lakh) to bolster their squad. However, Harbhajan has been out of action for some time. He left Chennai Super Kings’ camp like Suresh Raina, before the start of the tournament.

It will be interesting to see how he performs on return.The team also has a lot of fire power in the bowling department with Cummins leading their attack. They have the likes of Lockie Ferguson along with Indian pacers Prasidh Krishna, who made his debut for India recently against England in the ODI series, Kamlesh Nagarkoti and Shivam Mavi in the pace department.

Prasidh Krishna will be a much-improved bowler but he is known to leak runs far too many. With Sunil Narine, Harbhajan, Shakib and Varun Chakravarthy, there is variety in the spin department too.

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