They really should have closed it out. With four overs left, Kolkata Knight Riders were sitting on an 82-plus per-cent win probability, yet they somehow contrived to lose to Lucknow Super Giants by three wickets. One point from four matches is not the return a three-time champion side expects, and you could almost feel the air leaking out of their tournament on Friday night.
“It’s going to hurt,” Dale Steyn said on ESPNcricinfo’s TimeOut show. Few would argue. The South African great pointed out that, even allowing for a below-par 181 for 4, most things had gone to script until those final overs. Then came Mukul Choudhary’s late-order flurry – 36 from 12, including 20 off the 19th – and the script was torn up.
Key facts first. KKR posted 56 in the powerplay but crawled through the middle: a miserly 17 runs between overs 11 and 15, three wickets tossed in for good measure. Ajinkya Rahane’s 41 (SR 170.83) was bright, Rovman Powell’s unbeaten 39 gave the total some respectability, yet nobody else broke free. Lucknow, in reply, were 125 for 6 after 16 overs when Choudhary arrived. The chase looked gone; it wasn’t.
Steyn, who has never minced words, blamed a lapse in basic game management. “It is hard to pick yourself up. You have had a rough season,” he noted, adding: “You almost feel like by the 16th, 17th over – at least 18th over – the game is yours. You know, a little bit of smart cricket… you bowl three balls, three extra balls to Avesh, and the game is done. That’s where it is right there. But those extra deliveries go to Mukul. He hits them for boundaries. And that’s your season pretty much.”
Aaron Finch, sitting alongside him, focused on the batting. “There was a couple of batters that looked like they were seriously searching for form,” Finch said. The former Australia captain highlighted Cameron Green’s scratchy 32* off 24. “When Cameron Green first walked in, it was like he was so unsure about his game. Do I play a big shot? Do I just accumulate for a bit? And what that does, you end up losing all your intent. You face a lot of dot balls. It builds pressure.”
Finch was just as puzzled by Rinku Singh’s seven-ball four. “Rinku, on the other hand, he just looked totally out of sorts. It was almost like he wasn’t watching the ball as closely as what he could have. He’s looking to play the shot, but all his weight is going away from the ball. It was really unusual, which is something that I haven’t seen from him before. There was a batting line-up that looked short on confidence in that middle order.”
Green’s evening drew extra scrutiny because KKR tossed him the 19th over, his first bowl of the tournament. He leaked 20, including three boundaries to Choudhary, and the match turned. Steyn, again, was blunt. “Cameron Green, I’m thinking Digvesh bowling to him and he’s literally just blocking it back,” Steyn said. “And I’m listening to the commentators say, ‘he’s waiting for his match-up’. But who? You’ve got to take guys on. Who’s the match-up? He’s just patting balls back. In a period where you feel, even if you face ten balls or 12 bal…” His voice trailed off, the frustration clear.
The coaching staff will argue they were short of death-over options. Mitchell Starc had two left, yes, but he had been expensive earlier. Sunil Narine still had one in hand. The call to back Green – yet to deliver with bat or ball since his record-shattering auction fee – felt like a statement of faith but came off as a gamble.
From a tactical view, KKR’s innings lacked the gear shift IPL sides usually find between overs 7 and 15. They played spin conservatively, almost waiting for pace to re-enter, only for Krunal Pandya’s tidy four-over spell (1 for 24) to suck momentum away. The data says KKR have the third-worst middle-over scoring rate so far this season; the eye test agrees.
Bowling remains more encouraging. Narine remains miserly, Varun Chakravarthy has rediscovered some fizz, and the Powerplay seamers are winning match-ups. Yet none of that matters if the death overs keep unravelling. A team can’t allow 55 runs in overs 17-19 every second match and expect to stay alive in the table.
Where does that leave them? Bottom half, certainly, and nursing bruised confidence. The calendar offers little breathing space: Chennai on Sunday, Mumbai next Thursday. A win, any win, is the medicine they need.
Finch thinks belief, not talent, is the missing ingredient. “That’s a batting line-up with runs in it,” he reminded viewers. Steyn nodded, but his parting shot was grounded in reality: “If they don’t learn fast, the table will teach them.”
KKR do not have to be perfect from here, they just need, in Steyn’s words, “a little bit of smart cricket.” For now, that small phrase feels like the tallest order.
