Kolkata Knight Riders’ assistant coach Simon Katich admitted that there was tension on the field within their ranks, and said the string of six losses had contributed to the change in dynamics within the group in their disappointing IPL campaign this year.
Two-time champions KKR needed to win against Mumbai Indianson Sunday to qualify for the play-offs, but they slumped to a nine-wicketthrashing to crash out of the T20 tournament.
“There is no doubt and we can’t hide from the fact thatthere was some tension on the field. That was pretty evident in the last, Iguess, few games after we got into a bit of a roll with losses. We have toaddress that as a group,” Katich said at the post-match press conference.
“What is so important in IPL is the dynamic of the groupand, I guess the unity, and that is something KKR is very proud of,” added theformer Australian Test batsman. MI first restricted KKR to a meagre 133 for 7and then knocked off the runs by the 17th over itself with Quinton de Kock(30), skipper Rohit Sharma (55 not out) and Suryakumar Yadav (46) completingthe job with aplomb.
“It’s a very successful franchise, something that everyoneinvolved has worked very hard to contribute to over a long period of time.That’s something we have to certainly work on to get better moving forward,”Katich said. “There is no doubt throughout this campaign that the dynamic inour group has certainly changed.”
Katich was referring to the public criticism made by in-formall-rounder Andre Russell about some of the decisions taken by captain DineshKarthik, including not sending him up the batting order, and his statement ofan unhealthy team atmosphere.
There was also a clear on-field display of lack of unitybetween the two players over the last few matches.
Katich said the home defeats against Rajasthan Royals andRoyal Challengers Bangalore played a key role in their ouster, eventuallymaking their last match against MI a must-win one and that too at Wankhede,where they have a dismal record.
“It’s disappointing. It’s always a tough ask to come toMumbai where we don’t have a great record. Yes it would have been nice to winand get through. To finish where we did (fifth on the table) – it’s probablywhat we deserved. We had a great start but fell away badly through that middlephase,” he said.
“Those two missed opportunities were good opportunities toshore up our play-off chances. Those games against RCB and Rajasthan at home,losing those two games was always going to come back and hurt us.” He creditedthe Mumbai bowling attack for its potency and said it was always difficult toplay catch-up against the three-time champions.
“We lost that first wicket (Shubman Gill) first afterpowerplay. In terms of Andre (who was out for a duck), he has enjoyed coming upthe order. Today wasn’t his day – credit to Mumbai bowlers, they are classacts. (Jasprit) Bumrah and (Lasith) Malinga – they exploited the conditionswell. It was a slowish wicket. At the end we weren’t good enough.”
“Mumbai are a team we can’t play catch-up. In the last fewovers we are going to face two-three overs of (Jasprit) Bumrah, (Lasith)Malinga and Hardik Pandya. We did it very well at home (when KKR won), but herewe struggled,” he said.
Katich praised Gill and pacer Sandeep Warrier, inparticular, among the Indian lot of players.
“It’s hard to pin it on one person in particular. Overall inthe season we had a lot of positive signs. Young Shubman Gill looks like atalent for us in the future. He has done a variety of roles for us and playedvery well. A lot of overseas players performed really strongly. In terms ofbowling Sandeep Warrier did a good job when he came for us in the last threegames.”Going ahead we need improvement in powerplay.We had struggled in powerplay overs, asked our spinners to come and do the job.We have three quality spinners. Unfortunately, you can’t dictate terms withspinners if you don’t take wickets up front,” Katich pointed out.