Opening partnership, death bowling are major issues for KKR: Wasim Jaffer

The Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) have lacked potency in the first half of their league stage campaign in IPL 2022. In seven appearances, they have only three wins and are at seventh position in the points table. Currently, they are facing Gujarat Titans (GT) in their eighth league match at Dr. DY Patil Sports Academy. Ahead of this fixture, the former Indian cricketer Wasim Jaffer discussed the form of KKR and the deficiencies in each department of the game.

KKR performed well in the initial few matches but suffered three consecutive losses due to the lack of form of the bowlers like Umesh Yadav and Varun Chakravarthy. Jaffer stressed on the fact that Yadav used to pick wickets in a consistent manner in the initial matches when KKR was winning, but he has been rather average in the last two matches, and Chakravarthy has not been at his natural self as well.

“When the tournament, KKR looked like the team to beat. It looked like they were up and running to continue their good performance in this edition after finishing as the runner-up in the previous one. But now it looks they have lost the steam, with the lack of form of [Umesh] Yadav and [Varun] Chakravarthy. Yadav has stopped picking wickets in the powerplay overs, as he used to in the initial overs,” said Wasim Jaffer on Sky247.net presents ‘Not Just Cricket Show’ on CricTracker

Opening Partnership and death bowlers are an issue for KKR: Wasim Jaffer

Jaffer said that the team is not looking confident in terms of their opening partnership and the bowlers have been leaking runs. He mentioned that Venkatesh Iyer was swapped from the opening position to No. 6 in the last game, which did not do any good for the team. He further went on to say that only Sunil Narine has contained runs and taken wickets, while others have looked clueless.

“The opening partnership and death bowlers are a major issue for the team. They have been leaking many runs in the death overs, and even Venkatesh was demoted down the order. So, a lot of things are not happening well for the team. Apart from Sunil Narine, none of the bowlers have been proficient enough in the tournament. Cummins has been expensive on both ends, in the death as well as powerplay overs. They need to sort out their bowling and can bring Tim Southee in place of Pat Cummins,” Jaffer added.