IPL 2023: You Never Know With KKR!

First, of course, let’s talk about the cricket star born last night in the match between Rajasthan Royals (RR) and Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) at the iconic Eden Gardens in Kolkata, the 56^th match of IPL-2023. His name is Yashasvi Jaiswal who raced to the quickest ever fifty in IPL history taking just 13 balls and then going on to remain unbeaten at 98 off 47 balls to help his team RR win in style. Aged only 22, the southpaw opening batsman Jaiswal has humble origins—from a poor family in Uttar Pradesh—coming to Mumbai to train in cricket at the age of just ten and then struggling there for years, with no place of stay and doing gigs in dairies and paani puri shops. To make this cricketing dream come true he then started living in a tent with the cricket grounds men till he was noticed by a Mumbai training academy for his talent. He has several feats in first class cricket as the youngest player ever, playing for Mumbai in domestic cricket and he started his IPL stint from the year 2019. Yashasvi has mostly been consistent as an attacking opener in IPL and in the current version of IPL-2023 he’s scored more than 500 runs so far with a century to his credit. Now, who bowled to this marauding opener in the opening over?

 

There seemed to be no earthly reasons at all as to why KRR captain Nitish Rana should open the bowling: because he’s not been even regular part-time bowler; he had in his command three specialized spinners including the stalwarts of Varun Chakravarthy and Sunil Narine, of course, the latter being totally ineffective in this IPL, but definitely more resourceful than Rana; and KKR was defending a very modest total of 149 which again thanks mainly to his consistent failures as a batsman and also as a captain. But he still bowled. And there flowed from the bat of Yashasvi Jaiswal two sixes, three fours and a couple to make it 26 runs in all in that opening over only. The captain lost his team the match right then and there. And also the prospect of making it to the Playoffs, because with only two more matches to go KKR can get to a maximum of 14 points only if they win both and it’s not going to be enough with the huge negative net run-rate, achieved largely through that match that RR won with nearly 7 overs to spare . So, they could very well be joining Delhi Capitals in being virtually out of the tournament at this moment. If there happens to be deadlock at 14 points each any of the franchises like RR, MI, RCB, LSG and even SRH can make it through to the Playoffs on the basis of net run-rates. For all practical purposes GT and CSK are through with 16 and 15 points respectively.

 

Apparently Nitish Rana had no regrets or that he never cared to show any. He was reported to say later that if a gamble worked nobody would say anything. However, the question remains as to what kind of a gamble that was! To make things infuriating and unbearable he became the most hyperactive skipper ever seen on the field: he was talking insistently continuously to his bowlers and instructing them of what that could never be ascertained, even in the last two overs when RR needed less than ten runs to win with more than eight overs to spare plus nine wickets standing. However, Rana has not been a bad player at all over the years and was performing very well in the IPL when, of course, he was not the captain. Who had made the decision to appoint him to that post and why, also could never be ascertained!

 

That decision is probably only a part of all the mischief that’s been going with KKR franchise management in this version of the IPL: the selection of the playing eleven uneven and haphazard in most of the matches; not utilizing the services of the immensely talented Litton Das and Jason Roy from the initial stages; overdependence on the deadweight veterans like Russell, Gurbaz, Narine and Jagadeesan  irrespective of their performances; playing Rinku Singh much lower down the order even after his feat of the five sixes; the enigma of Shardul Thakur and many more. In fact, there’s an uncanny resemblance between KKR’s tactics and that of the Indian selectors for Team India, like not giving enough opportunities to the youngsters or not selecting them at the right time, persisting with the ageing veterans in all three formats of the game and so on. These are lessons that should never be inculcated by any team or franchise at any level of cricket under any circumstances.  

 

Is King Khan listening?