Calcutta: Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) head coach Jacques Kallis, on Friday, hoped Mitchell Starc’s replacement — England’s Tom Curran — will “play a big role” for them as they get ready to take on Virat Kohli’s Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) on Sunday.
Curran was roped in after Starc was recently ruled out with an injured right shin.
“Unfortunately, Starc got injured, but we have got a replacement in Curran. We look forward to some exciting stuff from Tom. He should stand up and play a big role in Mitchell’s absence,” Kallis told reporters at the Eden on Friday.
Curran may not possess express pace like Starc, who is rated as one of the world’s best, but has skills which include a deceptive, back-of-the-hand slower ball and a superb yorker. Recently, the 23-year old picked up a maiden five-wicket haul in a thrilling ODI against Australia at the new Perth Stadium back in January.
RCB had succumbed to an 82-run defeat at the hands of KKR here last year, getting skittled out for 49 in reply to KKR’s 131 all out. All the wickets were taken by the fast bowlers of the purple brigade.
Asked if that big-margin victory would be a morale booster, Kallis said: “Hopefully, it (the big-margin win) does happen again for us. But we will have to see and have our plans in place. We will hope to execute them in the night with both bat and ball.”
It will be interesting to see whether KKR keep Curran in the first XI on Sunday. With Mitchell Johnson also in the mix, KKR might opt to rest the Surrey fast bowler.
RCB will once again start as favourites with the likes of AB De Villiers, Chris Woakes, Yuzvendra Chahal and Brendon McCullum among the star players in their ranks.
Kallis, though, refused to echo his assistant coach Simon Katich, who had said on Thursday that the hosts will start as underdogs. “I think everybody starts as underdog.
“Everyone’s a little bit nervous since it’s the first game of the tournament. Some new teams... some new strategies... Everybody will try to feel each other out. The teams that get stuck in early on will start the tournament well,” Kallis said.
Captain Dinesh Karthik, who recently smashed an unbeaten eight-ball 29 to help India beat Bangladesh in the final of the T20I tri-series in Sri Lanka, is likely to bat in the middle order, Kallis said.
“We won’t have a set plan. We will come up with different strategies for different situations and will be flexible with our batting order. But at the moment, he would probably bat in the middle order.”
Kallis added that wrist spin always plays a crucial role in this format and the likes of Kuldeep Yadav and Piyush Chawla are there to play an important role for the Knight Riders.
“Wrist spinners play a big role in this format. A mystery bowl is slightly difficult to pick than conventional spin. We have got a couple of them, we are looking forward to some exciting time.”
On Kohli, Kallis said it would be naive to plan for only one player. “We got plans for all the batsmen. One batsman doesn’t make a team.
“When you fall into the trap of one batsman, then you are focusing on wrong things. You need to focus on all the batsmen.”
Meanwhile, RCB players also sweated it out in the middle without Kohli, AB de Villiers and Quinton de Kock. During practice, there was a lot of bonhomie between the players of the two teams.
Chahal was seen chatting with Kuldeep and Nitish Rana, while McCullum shared a laugh with Chris Lynn.
