Kolkata Knight Riders were written off after five defeats and a wash-out in their first six outings. Seven matches later the same side have banked six wins, sit on 14 points, and go into Sunday’s final league fixture against Delhi Capitals knowing a victory – plus a bit of help elsewhere – could carry them into the knockout rounds.
“I think they’ve got their tactics right,” Abhinav Mukund said on the TimeOut analysis show moments after Wednesday’s four-wicket win over Mumbai Indians at Eden Gardens. “They have got their combinations right. They have played to their strengths. The [batting] still may not be firing on all cylinders, but they have basically been very good in the aspects that we thought that KKR would be good in, which is spin.
“Their pace bowlers have come together a little bit. They’ve got Cam Green bowling and picking up wickets. So a lot of good things going for Kolkata Knight Riders and a form team is always dangerous. And teams will be thinking they would rather face Punjab Kings now than KKR. And that’s something we wouldn’t have said at the start of the IPL.”
The numbers back him up. Sunil Narine has conceded just 6.40 an over while taking 14 wickets – best economy in the tournament to date. Varun Chakravarthy, awful in April, now owns ten scalps at 8.78. Left-arm spinner Anukul Roy has chipped in during key middle overs, and young quick Kartik Tyagi is fifth on the Purple Cap table.
“Whenever they had good seasons [recently], Varun and Narine have done well. And now they’ve got Anukul as well, even though he didn’t bowl much today,” Wasim Jaffer observed. “But that’s been the story. Coming into the tournament, Varun wasn’t in the best of form. Even Narine wasn’t at his best, like how he’s performing now.
“That has been their strength. But finding that right combination probably hurt them in the initial games: finding who will open, who will play where, where Cam Green fits, their bowling struggles. Lot of players missed out, players didn’t come in time. But I think they just found the right combination in the nick of time.”
If KKR beat Delhi on Sunday their tally rises to 16. One slip by the congested mid-table pack would then be enough. For a side buried at the end of April, that would indeed be, as Mukund called it, “a great story”.
