Ajit Agarkar, the former India cricket team pacer and who has played for Kolkata Knight Riders before in the IPL, has said the move to replace Dinesh Karthik with Eoin Morgan as the skipper of the side was a strange and wrong move. Agarkar believes that this move is disruptive for the team which is currently involved in the middle of the play-off scrap for the fourth spot.
Kolkata Knight Riders’ journey in IPL 2020 has been inconsistent. The two-time champions’ situation has deteriorated after the huge loss to Virat Kohli’s Royal Challengers Bangalore in the clash at Abu Dhabi. Having just managed 84/8 in 20 overs, Kolkata Knight Riders lost by eight wickets and Royal Challengers Bangalore won with 39 balls to spare. The loss has devastated their Net Run-Rate, which is now the worst among all the teams. They have not been helped by poor batting orders, replacing the skipper in the middle of the tournament as well as the lack of form of several players like Andre Russell, Pat Cummins and Sunil Narine.
Speaking on the Star Sports show ‘Fan Week’, former India cricket team pacer Ajit Agarkar has said the move to replace Dinesh Karthik as skipper with Eoin Morgan was wrong and strange. Agarkar, who has also played for Kolkata Knight Riders, said, “I don’t think replacing Dinesh Karthik after seven games when you’re sitting fourth in the table is the right move in my opinion. It does add to the disruption of the team and you could see the way they performed against Mumbai Indians, even though it was a tough game. I don’t think it was the right move. You make plans with a certain captain through the course of the year and in spite of sitting fourth on the table, it was a very strange move for me.”
Mixed fortunes for KKR in Morgan's captaincy
Before Eoin Morgan took over the captaincy, Kolkata Knight Riders had established some momentum with narrow wins against Kings XI Punjab and Chennai Super Kings by two and 10 runs respectively. However, ever since Eoin Morgan took over, the results have been extreme.
Kolkata Knight Riders suffered a massive loss against Mumbai Indians which was their 21st in 27 encounters against the four-time champions. They escaped in the Super Over encounter against Sunrisers Hyderabad due to the brilliance of Lockie Ferguson. However, in the game against Royal Challengers Bangalore, they were totally undone by the pace of Mohammed Siraj and the guile of Yuzvendra Chahal to be restricted to 84/8.
Kolkata Knight Riders’ next clash is against table-toppers Delhi Capitals. Having suffered three straight losses against the Delhi Capitals side since IPL 2019, KKR head into this match low on confidence.
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