Mitchell Johnson hopeful of returning for next match: Heath Streak

Former Australia fast bowler Mitchell Johnson was not part of the KKR bowling attack when they took on the Chennai Super Kings in Chepauk the other night. It was indeed a tough encounter, something that saw their hearts broken by conceding a loss by the most slender of margins. However, despite all that, it would seem as though bowling coach Heath Streak is indeed upbeat. Obviously, the loss had been painful, but the fact of the matter remains that it was a painful loss nonetheless.

Speaking ahead of their encounter at the Eden Gardens against an unbeaten Sunrisers Hyderabad side, Streak revealed that Johnson could indeed make his way back into the grand scheme of things. He also added that several other options were available on the bench for the Knight Riders – referring to the U19 World Cup winning duo of Kamlesh Nagarkoti and Shivam Mavi.

“Mitchell Johnson missed out and was rested with a slight niggle. Hopefully, he will be back for the next game that will add a bit of strength,” Streak told reporters, on the sidelines of its practice session that was curtailed by evening showers.” He continued, “It was a tough performance (against CSK), we got to learn from those mistakes. We have to make sure that we come back strongly here,” he added.

“We have got some options available to us and we will have to look at it. However, that doesn’t necessarily mean we will change. It might be more of changing the combination of how we use the guys, or we might go for a team change,” he said.

Vinay Kumar did have a plan: Streak

Following the unlikely loss at Chepauk, Streak went ahead and defended pacer Vinay Kumar, stating that the 33-year old did indeed have a plan. However, he also stated that the plan wasn’t executed as many thought that it would have been. Sam Billings simply ripped Vinay Kumar apart in the final over to ensure a CSK victory at Chepauk.

“The biggest thing for us was the execution of our plans. In the middle, our spinners bowled really well, but we went in for too many runs in the Powerplay, which was hard to pull back,” said the bowling coach.

“We had a couple of costly dropped catches. We also did not bowl to our best. We just need to put our collective bowling performance in our next game,” he said.

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