Kolkata get what they deserved

Finally as all would have expected, the Kolkata Knight Riders ended their IPL stint yesterday by losing to the Mumbai Indians, which was their last chance to prove a point in the tournament. One has to anyway congratulate the Kolkata Knight Riders for coming this far when their performances in the past three editions of the tournament were haphazard. Despite the presence of big guns like Sourav Ganguly, Ricky Ponting, Brendon McCullum and others, they ended at the bottom of the table in the past three editions of the tournament. This time there were more teams compared to the previous editions.

A loss against one team could be made up in their next game. And, may be that was the reason why the Kolkata made it count unlike last three editions. On the other hand, there was a re-auction of the players which meant another chance for the franchisee to have their bid on a player whom they think is a promising one. This time Kolkata had promising players like Gambhir, Kallis, Yousuf Pathan and Brett Lee to name a few. However, all that could help them was to place them fourth in the points table which was a jump from position No.8 last time.

Scorecard suggests there were the top order of the KKR failed miserably with hardly any contributions from Gambhir, Kallis, Goswami and Tiwary. So was the case regarding Yousuf Pathan and Shakib Al Hasan. It was fascinating to see one player from Holland and the other from Bangladesh having a major share in the Kolkata's batting with Ryan ten Doeschate top scoring with 70 and Shakib Al Hasan scoring 26. The second highest run getter in last year's IPL should learn from the player where cricket has taken a backseat. The aforementioned players didn't disappoint their franchisee who bid a huge sum on them.

Coming to the Mumbai Indians' batting, it was as though Aiden Craig Blizzard was introducing himself when stats shows that he never played international cricket at all and more over neither he could be thought to represent the same in years to come. The opening batsmen top scored with 51 runs off 30 balls at a decent strike rate of 170. One can see the route taken by KKR who went in for 7 of their bowlers to try something to stop the Mumbai Indians from scoring. But, who on earth cares for those when James Franklin was trying to undo the damage which he did with the ball?

The fate of a depleted KKR

Well it has been the trademark of the Kolkata Knight Riders to reserve wickets and go in for a final assault which is yet to become a reality. Even in yesterday's game between the Kolkata Knight Riders and the Mumbai Indians, the Kolkata Knight Riders lost just 3 wickets in the 20 overs that they played only to pile up a mere 155 runs on the board and eventually end up on the losing side. If not for his captaincy, Sourav Ganguly should stand nowhere when it comes to rescuing his team which was evident when he scored just 31 runs from 34 deliveries at a strike of less than 100.

This strike can be appreciated had it been in a one day international. But, this is not the time to remind anyone that Ganguly was playing a T20 game where his experience is less than some Piyush Chawla who is at present half his age. But, if common sense speaks, Ganguly should have taken the decision to take charge of his team by going for big shots rather than steadily increasing the pace after ducking in the initial part of his batting. No one would account Ganguly for hitting 5 boundaries but would surely point their fingers for not hitting even a single ball out of the ground.

If the other side of the coin is also given a close look at, it would be quite evident when the KKR team hardly had any hard hitting batsmen with only Chris Gayle and to some extent Ganguly being an exception. Had I been in place of Ganguly, I would have opted to choose Brad Hodge instead of Angelo Mathews and Shukla over Saha or Harpreet Singh. One has to wonder from where did this Harpreet Singh come from when the KKR squad doesn't mention his name. On the other side, even the bowlers from KKR had no momentum in them to trouble the Mumbai Indians' batsmen.

One cannot cite the presence of Sachin Tendulkar to have increased pressure on the KKR side for, Sachin is as good as anybody else as far as T20 cricket is considered though there might be a lot of contradictions to this. Shane Bond and Ishanth Sharma should have shown their caliber for the money what they were paid and the expectations they had drawn from their fans. But, they were the bowlers who ended up with the highest economy rate when both of them returned with a run rate of over 10 runs an over. Shane Bond was not even made to bowl his full quota of 4 overs. The only area where KKR can boast over MI is that they hit 2 sixes compared to only one from the MI side.