Dinesh Karthik created a stir when he decided to relinquish the captaincy of the Kolkata Knight Riders campaign in the middle of IPL 2020 to Eoin Morgan. The reason given by Karthik was that he wanted to concentrate on his batting and wicketkeeping. When he was captain of the Kolkata Knight Riders for the first part, he had managed just one fifty which came against Kings XI Punjab. However, ever since relinquishing the captaincy, Karthik has had scores of 4,29,4,3,0 and 21* as his struggles continued. Gautam Gambhir, while interacting with a website, has slammed the decision of Dinesh Karthik to leave the captaincy in the middle of the tournament.
Speaking to cricket.com, Gambhir said, “It just shows the mindset. You left captaincy because you wanted to concentrate on batting, but then it hasn’t worked, so probably sometimes it’s good when you take up responsibilities. What I’ve realised when I was through a worse phase in 2014. I got three ducks in a row when we started the tournament. It was captaincy that helped me that I could get back into form.”
Gambhir pointed out to his own instance in IPL 2014 when he started the campaign with three ducks on the trot. The left-hander was not contributing with the bat but he emphasized that he wanted to ensure the team won on a regular basis. “The reason why because when I was not batting, I was thinking about how to make the team win through my captaincy and the decision making. But when you’re not captaining, you’re thinking even more about your batting,” Gambhir said.
Kolkata Knight Riders in trouble
Kolkata Knight Riders’ playoff chances have taken a massive hit in IPL 2020 after losing to Chennai Super Kings by six wickets at the Dubai International Cricket Stadium. Currently, Eoin Morgan’s side are in the fifth position and with only one game to play, they need other results going their way.
If Kings XI Punjab lose both games and Kolkata Knight Riders beat Rajasthan Royals, they will have to hope Sunrisers Hyderabad lose one of their games so that Kolkata Knight Riders can qualify. However, the inconsistency shown by the Kolkata Knight Riders, plus injuries to key players has ensured that their playoff spot is no longer in their hands.
