Winning and losing are all part of cricket. How a team performs is what matters most. Apart from the match against Lucknow Super Giants (LSG), Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) batsmen showed no intent while chasing the target. The team has firepower and depth in its batting, but the result is absolutely unacceptable.
Against Chennai Super Kings (CSK), KKR made some changes to their batting order, promoting Sunil Narine to the opening slot and moving Cameron Green deeper down the order. Former Australia captain Aaron Finch said that promoting Narine to the opening slot was a positive step for the team, but he had also taken many questionable decisions.
Aaron Finch raised questions on KKR
Kolkata Knight Riders’ bowling line-up performed well in the slog overs, restricting CSK to 192 runs. Sunil Narine, Karthik Tyagi and Anukul Roy bowled some important overs.
Many high scoring matches have been seen in the current IPL season. The target of 193 runs could have been achieved at Chepauk Cricket Ground. But KKR again left the field as a losing team.
“Definitely wasn’t very good. There are a lot of question marks about KKR, especially in that run chase. Some of their strategies were very questionable. We appreciated Sunil Narine’s decision to go at the top of the order. It didn’t come today (24 off 17 balls), but it was something different. At least they tried to do it”, Aaron Finch said on ESPNcricinfo’s Timeout Show.
There was a lack of aggression in the partnership between Ajinkya Rahane and Angkrish Raghuvanshi.
After the openers were out, KKR captain Ajinkya Rahane and Angkrish Raghuvanshi made a partnership of more than 50 runs in the middle, but it did not help the team in the run chase. They claimed runs and established a much-needed partnership, but both the batsmen lacked the aggression they needed to show.
“But some of the other decisions were a bit strange. And they were never in the hunt. We talked about Rahane and Raghuvanshi batting together, how that could be such a hindrance (factor). And their partnership wasn’t bad, but there’s still no point of difference in that partnership. They don’t bowl. They don’t get to the point where the opposition captain has to make some serious decisions about shuffling his team,” the former Australian opener said.
Aaron Finch demands removal of Cameron Green
Cameron Green, a natural top-order batsman, surprisingly went into bat as the No. 6 of the line-up and returned early with a golden duck. Finch said that with Green being a designated top-order batsman, pushing him down the batting order would not work for the team. According to statistics, Green has batted 68 times in T20 so far, out of which he has batted at this number only nine times. He last performed as the number 6 batsman in 2024.
“When you’ve got that much experience in that dugout, you think they’ll at least be making the right calls at the right time. It’s an unusual position for Cameron Green to be batting at No. 6. I don’t think he’s done that great a job in T20 cricket,” said Aaron Finch.
“You’ve got Seifert sitting in, he’s a specialist opening batsman. Cameron Green hasn’t played a huge amount of T20 cricket (recently, because of injuries). So you’ve got a guy who brings a good skill set and really good form in Seifert, coming off a good (T20) World Cup. He’s got the scoop, he’s got the ramp, he’s got a lot of different options.”
Read More: Andre Russell is better than Cameron Green: Former RCB star slams KKR for biggest IPL mistake so far
