Last season, in the middle of IPL 2020, KKR opted to replace Dinesh Kartik as captain, and England’s World Cup-winning captain, Eoin Morgan was appointed as their new skipper. 3 matches into this IPL 2021, the conditions for Morgan look tough to persist upon.
These ain’t an exaggeration, but Eoin Morgan has been taking some controversial decisions for a very long time. These could be considered as bold moves or experimental work, but have resulted mostly in a negative sense and haven’t benefited the Kolkata-based side.
Team selection is an issue indeed. Shakib-Al-Hasan isn’t getting his due place to perform in the squad, but persisting with him, albeit Sunil Narine waits idly in their dug-out, waiting for a chance.
Not only team selection, but the mid-match decisions as captain is open to all criticism. In the 3rd match against RCB, Varun Chakravarthy was denied a 2nd over in the power play spell, even after getting 2 wickets in his first. Also, Shakib’s left-arm spin overs weren’t utilized and in the 19th over, Harbhajan Singh was called into a ball, which is surprising. The prospects and resources of Pat Cummins haven’t been used to its effectiveness and the last match wonder Andre Russell was thrashed for 38 runs, mostly by AB De Villiers, in the 2 overs that he bowled.
There are a lot of things going wrong with the Kolkata Knight Riders’ side, and even the supporters of KKR, miss the old, fierce, cunning Eoin Morgan and hope he gets back to his former self cause everyone knows the worth of a World Cup-winning captain.
