KKR have suffered five defeats on the trot, exposing their over-reliance on Andre Russell, and Karthik has copped criticism for not promoting the big-hitting West Indian up the order.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Chosen ahead of the young \nRishabh Pant in the World Cup squad in a debatable decision, the Tamil \nNadu veteran, who was KKR’s leading run-getter last season, is \nstruggling for runs with an average of 16.71 from nine outings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Facing\n a must-win situation ahead of the remaining four matches, head coach \nJacques Kallis has backed the under-fire skipper to script a 2014-like \nturnaround when they won their second title with nine wins in a row.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The\n frustration in the team management was palpable when Karthik, along \nwith other under-performing India players, including Kuldeep Yadav, were\n given a couple of days break following their nine-wicket rout of \nSunrisers Hyderabad in their last match.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“I think the guys are \nfrustrated, and we felt they needed a break. DK went home for a day as \nwell. It’s about getting the guys refreshed and just trying to be \nmentally up for the game again,” Kallis has said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The biggest \nletdown for the team has been its bowling unit, especially the spinners \nwho have lacked sting at the Eden Gardens, something that was its main \nstrength during the title-winning campaigns in 2012 and 2014.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The\n famed trio of Kuldeep Yadav, Sunil Narine and Piyus Chawla have \naccounted for just 16 wickets from 10 matches, summing up their misery. \nThat Kuldeep has got four wickets and was left out in Hyderabad was more\n worrying as they seek to revive their fortunes against a team they had \nbeaten convincingly in the first leg.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Clinging to one spot below \nKKR at seventh in the eight-team standings, Rajasthan Royals’ fate too \nhangs by the thread. They showed urgency with Steve Smith replacing \nAjinkya Rahane as the captain ahead of their clash against Mumbai \nIndians.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The move has clicked and RR were able to bring their \ncampaign back on track beating Mumbai. Rahane, too, roared back to form \nwith an elegant century, albeit in a losing cause, against Delhi \nCapitals in their last match.\n\n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
KKR have suffered five defeats on the trot, exposing their over-reliance on Andre Russell, and Karthik has copped criticism for not promoting the big-hitting West Indian up the order. Chosen ahead of the young Rishabh Pant in the World Cup squad in a debatable decision, the Tamil Nadu veteran, who was KKR’s leading run-getter last […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":59873,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[122],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-59872","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59872","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=59872"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59872\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":59874,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59872\/revisions\/59874"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/59873"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=59872"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=59872"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=59872"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}