It has not been a good season for the Kolkata Knight Riders, and even after Morgan finally leading the side, he hasn’t really been to pull of the mastery he is generally known for. It has been a tough year for Morgan personally and the teams that he has been part of have performed dismally as well, be it Middlesex in the T20 Blast, London Spirit in The Hundred or KKR in the IPL.
In 2021, the batting average of Morgan in 18 T20s has been 22 with a best of 47 while in the T20Is, he has played seven games and his average has worsened to 11 with the best score of 28.
Thus, for KKR to come good, this time around, they not only need Morgan’s thinking cap on but also his form with the bat to be good. Well, more than KKR, England would be needing their charismatic captain to get back to form.
But before the need for the changes come into place, a look at what has transpired for the Knight Riders so far would give an idea as to where things are headed.
The Knight Riders started the tournament in an incredible fashion, beating their nemesis from the last season, who threw them out of the Playoffs race, Sunrisers Hyderabad by 10 runs in a close encounter. While Nitish Rana was the hero with the bat for KKR, Andre Russell saved the day with the ball.
However, after winning a game from almost a losing position in the first game, they lost a game from a winning position against Mumbai Indians as they were unable to chase down 153, even after being 72-0 in the first nine overs at one point in time.
This loss against Mumbai Indians started a series that could only end after three more consecutive losses.
The first lost to RCB by a huge margin of 38 runs when AB de Villiers and Glenn Maxwell went on a rampage, unleashing the beast within in different stages of the innings, thereby propelling the Challenegsr to a total of over 200 and then KKr were no match to it.
In the next game, the Knight Riders bowlers were once again taken for huge runs by the Chennai Super Kings. The Super Kings reached 220 courtesy of a 95 from Faf du Plessis and 64 from Ruturaj Gaikwad. Even after some immense hitting by Pat Cummins, Russell and Dinesh Karthik, Knight Riders could get to only 202 and eventually lost the game by 18 runs.
Their last loss on the trot came gainer Rajasthan Royals where, for a change, the batting messed up. The men in purple were restricted for 133-9 in their 20 overs and the Royals chased it down comfortably to win the game by six wickets.
After these humiliating losses, finally came a solitary win against fellow strugglers Punjab Kings. Morgan and Rahul Tripathi found form and chased down an easy 124 with five wickets intact after bowlers had done their work to reduce Kings to 123-9 in their 20 overs.
However, the win did not follow another victory as the Knight Riders lost the plot and were defeated by the Delhi Capitals courtesy of a brilliant innings from Prithvi Shaw where he hit 82 off just 41 balls and took the game away from the Knight Riders.
So Knight riders would be starting their second phase with seven matches in their kitty and requiring to win at least five of them to at least have a shot at the Playoffs.
The only new signing for the Knight riders is Kiwi fast bowler Tim Southee, who comes in as a replacement for one of the key members of the Kolkata squad, Pat Cummins, who chose to remain with his young family and spend some time head of the T20 World Cup.
Batsmen Eoin Morgan, Dinesh Karthik, Nitish Rana, Prasidh Krishna, Shubman Gill, Rahul Tripathi, Tim Seifert, Sheldon Jackson, Karun Nair, Venkatesh Iyer
All-rounders Andre Russell, Sunil Narine, Shakib al Hasan, Ben Cutting, Kamlesh Nagarkoti, Gurkeerat Singh Mann, Pawan Negi
Bowlers Kuldeep Yadav, Lockie Ferguson, Sandeep Warrier, Shivam Mavi, Varun Chakravarthy, Vaibhav Arora, Harbhajan Singh, Tim Southee.
For the Knight Riders to be able to achieve their goal of reaching the Playoffs first, certain players dearly need to click. Shubman Gill at the top alongside Rahul Tripathi needs to click. The management needs to establish whether Sunil Narine opens the innings or plays ta number eight because he certainly is not a middle-order player.
Along with Eoin Morgan, Andre Russell and Shakib Al Hasan need to find form as these three along with Dinesh Karthik are going t be crucial for KKR’s UAE adventures. Between the fast bowlers, mostly Lockie Ferguson would be part of the playing XI with an outside chance for Southee.
The most important thing however would be to identify whether the team would want to go with Narine or Shakib. Once they are able to deal with that, the rest of the things would be sorted.