Kolkata: Is Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) going the Rajasthan Royals (RR) way. A few days back, the Royals, after a string of losses decided to appoint Steve Smith as the captain of the team in place of Ajinkya Rahane. The same is expected for KKR according to sources close to the franchise.
Speculation started after Andre Russell, Piyush Chawala, Sunil Narine and a few others returned to the city here Monday after the game against Sunrisers Hyderabad. However, other senior cricketers including Dinesh Karthik, Robin Uthappa, Nithish Rana, Kuldeep Yadav and a few others were summoned to Mumbai. The official version available is that these players have gone to the KKR academy in Mumbai as the practice facilities are better there and will return here Wednesday night or Thursday morning. However, then why didn’t the likes of Russell, Narine and Chris Lynn accompany them?
Sources however, said that a high-level discussion between top franchise officials and the cricketers is on the cards where the captaincy of Karthik will be evaluated. Karthik’s decision to continuously send Russell at No.7 has irked many. This is after the West Indian himself had expressed his desire to bat at No.4 after the game against Royal Challengers Bangalore. But again during the match against Hyderabad, he was asked to bat at No.7 with not many balls to spare.
A section of the management is of the opinion that West Indian Carlos Brathwaite should be handed over the reins of the team for the remaining four games as he has the experience of leading the national team in the shortest format of the game.
However, all these are speculations at the moment. The hard fact is that KKR only have one option in hand and that is two win all their remaining four games. That is the bottomline, nothing else matters.
