Former Kolkata Knight Riders skipper, Gautam Gambhir has strongly expressed his disapproval with Dinesh Karthik’s decision to step away from the KKR captaincy role mid-season and handing it over to Eoin Morgan.
Kolkata Knight Riders IPL 2020 campaign has been marked with inconsistency from the very beginning when they lost their first game against Mumbai Indians. Their recent defeat at the hands of Chennai Super Kings now means that KKR have to depend on results elsewhere to have any chance of qualifying for the playoffs this season. Dinesh Karthik stepped down from captaincy midway through the season, handing it over to Eoin Morgan while stating the reason that the decision was purely made so that Karthik could focus on his batting, which ultimately has not worked out either.
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 realized 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.” Gautam Gambhir further went on to give his example from his struggling days at KKR, “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,” he added.
KKR play Rajasthan Royals in their final game of the season on Sunday, and would require a victory at any cost to have hopes of qualifying for the playoffs with help from other results.
