A little after Kolkata Knight Riders got down to training at Eden on Saturday, captain Ajinkya Rahane had a close look at the dry pitch.
A bit of watering was done on the pitch late in the evening after the Knight Riders’ practice. But given its overall look, KKR would certainly hope for something big from their spin duo of Sunil Narine and Varun Chakravarthy against the Rajasthan Royals on Sunday.
At the same time, they would hope rain stays away and allows the game to be played. After all, they are the favourites as the Royals have really struggled this season and are already out of the playoffs race. Sunday’s weather forecast threatens with the possibility of rain.
Elements aside, the Knight Riders must be clinical on the field in all their remaining games to secure a playoffs berth. Inability to get full points from Sunday’s game would be a big setback for the Knights.
“Destiny is still in our own hands. The team is gelling nicely, so it’s just for us to take it one game at a time,” lower-order batsman Rovman Powell said at the news conference on Saturday.
All that is alright, but the Knights would first want Rahane, their skipper, to be 100 per cent fit for this crucial contest.
During an interaction on Friday, Rahane said he was “hopeful” about his participation in Sunday’s game. During Friday’s training, he didn’t bat at nets and on Saturday, with the area between his right thumb and index finger bandaged, he underwent just a five-minute knocking at one of the practice nets.
Thereafter, Rahane spoke with head coach Chandrakant Pandit, the team doctor and the physio for quite some time before heading off the ground. It’s quite obvious that the Knights’ medical staff will be working till the 11th hour to ensure Rahane can be apart of the game, if not the entire duration maybe as an Impact Player.
In case Rahane fails to be fully fit by the time the game begins, Narine may again have to wear the captain’s hat, just as he had to for a good part of the Delhi Capitals’ run chase in the Knights’ 14-run win at the Kotla last Tuesday.
That extra workload isn’t something new for Narine, though. But alongside Varun, the Trinidadian off-spinner will be key to keeping a leash on the Royals’ batting group. If “wonderkid” Vaibhav Suryavanshi, Yashasvi Jaiswal, Dhruv Jurel and the like get going, Varun and Narine’s spells will be massive for KKR.
On a dry surface, it will be equally tough for the inconsistent and struggling Royals batters to thwart the Knights’ spin duo. The Knights are also looking to take a leaf out of Mumbai Indians’ book to stall the Royals batters.
“If you look at the last game that they (Royals) played, against Mumbai, it was tactical work by Mumbai that got them such a big victory. So, our team is doing the very same, trying to come up with ways of stopping all their batters,” Powell said