‘Was surprised that Shreyas Iyer did not…’: Wasim Jaffer highlights captaincy flaw in KKR’s defeat to RCB

KEY STORY

• Despite being a low-scoring affair, the Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) vs Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) showdown in the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2022 turned out to be an enthralling contest. The match went to the last over despite RCB only chasing a paltry target of 129 runs. While there were those who hailed Shreyas Iyer’s captaincy in the match, former India cricketer Wasim Jaffer highlighted a few flaws too.

• The Knight Riders weren’t expected to remain in the game after they could only post a total of 128 runs on the board. However, the likes of Tim Southee and Umesh Yadav delivered the goods from the word go and bagged 3 of RCB’s wickets for just 17 runs. While Southee bagged the big wicket of Bengaluru skipper Faf du Plessis, Virat Kohli and Anuj Rawat were removed by Umesh Yadav.

• The Knight Riders, fighting extreme odds, found a way back into the game David Willey, Shahbaz Ahmed and Sherfane Rutherford played patient knocks to guide RCB home. During the middle overs, KKR seemed to have lost the plot a little bit. Wasim Jaffer, who has turned into an active pundit of the game, feels Shreyas Iyer made a few captaincy errors that could’ve been prevented.

• “I was surprised that Shreyas Iyer did not bowl Nitish Rana when there were two left-handers there and Chakravarthy was clearly struggling against them. One or two overs from Rana would have meant that Russell wouldn’t have had to bowl. He could have bowled Venkatesh Iyer earlier if Russell was struggling. Things could have been a little bit different if he had saved Chakravathy’s over there and used it for right-handers.

• “Umesh Yadav and Tim Southee made a match out of it by getting RCB 17/3 in the powerplay. KKR would have had a better chance if Chakravarthy had bowled better,” Jaffer said on ESPNCricinfo.

• Chakravarthy, who has arguably been KKR’s go-to bowler over the last couple of seasons, gave away 33 runs in 4 overs while only picking up 1 wicket. Jaffer feels the mystery spinner struggles a bit while facing left-handers, hence, avoids giving ample air to the ball.

CONCLUSION

• “It feels like Varun Chakravarthy struggles a bit bowling to the left-handers. He started bowling from around the stumps and then came over the wicket, but his length was on the shorter side. It helped the batters to pull him. He was probably scared to throw the ball in the air or in front of the batters. Had he gone for 20-25 runs or had taken a wicket at that stage, it would have been interesting.”

• Kolkata took the game to the last over where Dinesh Karthik’s heroics guided Bengaluru to their maiden victory of the season. Despite the defeat KKR drew plenty of plaudits for the fight they showed.