For all intents and purposes, four wins in your first sixes matches is a good start. So you couldn’t really blame Gautam Gambhir for saying exactly that after Suresh Raina’s inspired 84 had taken Gujarat Lions to a much-needed four wicket win in Kolkata on Friday.
It made sense as well. For the Gujarat Lions, it was a win which was desperately required, a win which took them out of the depths of last place. For Kolkata though, while a win would have offered another chance to displace Mumbai from the No 1 spot, they still remained comfortably ensconced in the second place.
So all good, right? A minor blip and nothing more than that, right?
Not really.
Burn and crash
If Mumbai Indians have a reputation of being the worst starters in the Indian Premier League, Kolkata Knight Riders are right at the opposite end of the spectrum. They start off seasons in blazing, rip-roaring fashion, only to run out of steam and go down in flames by the end. And while Mumbai have bucked the trend with their spectacular start this year, Kolkata Knight Riders still seem to be following the patterns of the last two seasons.
Call it just coincidence or something else, but there is a definite pattern. In the 2015 edition, the Knight Riders, the defending champions, started off with four wins in their opening seven and followed it up with another three wins on the trot in the middle period. With three matches remaining and 14 points on board, a place in the playoffs seemed almost guaranteed, but the Knight Riders went down tumbling in their last three matches and finished fifth.
In 2016 as well, Kolkata Knight Riders won four out of their first six matches, both the losses incidentally coming to their “bogey” team Mumbai Indians. They went on to win just four out of their next eight matches, just about sneaking into the playoffs this time, only to be eliminated drably by the Sunrisers Hyderabad in the Eliminator.
The problem in both these seasons has been that after a strong start, Knight Riders have put their feet off the accelerator. And while there’s still no reason to panic after the loss against Gujarat Lions, Gautam Gambhir has to be mindful of the fact that this is a pattern his team needs to break.
Steady doesn’t quite cut it in the IPL
It reflected in Friday’s match to an extent. After the kind of start Sunil Narine and Gautam Gambhir gave them, Kolkata Knight Riders should never have got anything less than 200. They creamed 65/1 in six overs, the highest score in the Powerplay for a team batting first. After 10 overs, they were 96/1.
But the charge, somehow, never came, even despite the fact that they weren’t losing wickets. Robin Uthappa and Manish Pandey were getting the singles away and even the odd boundaries, but Gujarat were pulling it back. From over 11 to over 15, 45 runs were scored. Forty-six runs were scored between overs 15 to 20. Not bad, you’d say, but not really spectacular.
It’s in stark contrast to how Mumbai Indians have played in this tournament. When they get the momentum, they just don’t let it slip as Nitish Rana showed in that chase of 198/4 against Punjab on Thursday. When you have the momentum going your way, you need to keep swinging.
To an extent, this lack of intensity was visible in Kolkata Knight Riders’ bowling as well. Their bowling in a chase has never been as good as their batting and that remains a definite weak spot. Apart from Kuldeep and Umesh Yadav, not a single bowler seemed to have any ideas about how to dismiss Suresh Raina. The strategy seemed to be to keep putting pressure at the other end and hope it got to Raina finally. Again, a steady strategy, but nothing really too unique about it. It didn’t. And therein lies a lesson for Kolkata Knight Riders.
Steady doesn’t quite cut it in the IPL, Gautam. As Danny Morrison would put it, this is the place to either “go big or go home”. And while the start has been steady, past seasons will remind us that only the first act is done as yet.