Robin Uthappa attributes 'soft' and 'unnecessary' dismissals for KKR's downfall against CSK

Former cricketer Robin Uthappa believes that Kolkata Knight Riders batters didn’t spend enough time in the middle, which was the root cause behind their defeat at the hands of Chennai Super Kings. Batting first, the Shreyas Iyer-led side lost Phil Salt on the first ball of the match, yet Sunil Narine and Angkrish Raghuvanshi managed to give them a good start in the middle. The two-time champions posted 56 runs in the powerplay, but soon after that, wickets fell like a house of cards, as KKR posted 137 runs in the first innings.

Skipper Iyer spent a lot of time in the middle but couldn’t do much of a damage as he made 34 runs off 32 deliveries. On the other hand, Rinku Singh, Andre Russell, Ramandeep Singh and Venkatesh Iyer struggled big time, which put KKR under a lot of pressure. Uthappa mentioned that Ravindra Jadeja dominated in the middle but he believes that KKR batters threw away their wickets as they were pretty soft dismissals.

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“Shreyas Iyer batted through the innings but did not do much. KKR let themselves down in today. 56 from the first 6 and then back-to-back wickets from Jadeja put them in trouble. Jaddu was the bowler that caused the issue. But the wickets after that were pretty soft, unnecessary to be honest and that was the downfall for them,” Uthappa said while talking to JioCinema.

You can’t fault Angkrish Raghuvanshi: Uthappa

After a brilliant half-century against Delhi Capitals, KKR backed Angkrish Raghuvanshi against CSK and in reply, he made 24 runs off 18 deliveries. Speaking about his performance, Uthappa believes that Raghuvanshi is young and will mature with age and will learn and grow in time to come.

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“You can’t fault Angkrish Raghuvanshi, he is a youngster, and he wanted to create an impact. He could have exercised a little more maturity and he will learn and grow,” Uthappa said.