In the second phase, if any team has impressed the most, then it is Kolkata Knight Riders. Kolkata Knight Riders are currently at number four in the points table after winning 3 out of their 5 matches in the second leg of the tournament.
Before the defeat of Punjab Kings, it seemed that the fourth team would be Kolkata Knight Riders, but Punjab Kings have made a reversal and made it more interesting as to who will be the fourth team of playoffs.
Chennai Super Kings and Delhi Capitals have already qualified for playoffs and third-placed Royal Challengers need 1 more win from their three matches to confirm their place into the playoffs considering their net run rate which is very poor.
Sunrisers Hyderabad is completely out of the race for Playoffs but they will have a chance to spoil the work of the rest of the teams who are fighting for number 3rd and 4th spot of playoffs’ in the tournament.
In Sunday’s second match, Eoin Morgan’s Kolkata Knight Riders lock horns against Kane Williamson’s Sunrisers Hyderbad, which is also a double-header. Kolkata Knight Riders’ hold has faltered after their last over loss against Punjab Kings and loss under the captaincy of Eoin Morgan.
After the loss the former Indian cricketer Sunil Gavaskar the upcoming games will going to test the captaincy abilities of Kolkata Knight Riders captain Eoin Morgan.
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Gavaskar believes that it will be tough for the kolkata knight riders to easily makes it to the playoffs as even the bat Eoin Morgan has been not good enough in the tournament.
“Punjab after their last over win over Kolkata will be in a better frame of mind that KKR who lost that game which they should have won. So it’s where Morgan’s captaincy will be tested for it is not easy to lift a team’s morale after such a narrow loss. Not being in good batting form himself will be additional pressure on him.”
Morgan as a captain has faced the criticism a lot during the tournament for his choices of selection. In a match against Delhi Capitals, Sunil Gavaskar has raised the question over the choice of selection when Pat Cummins was made to sit out outside under the captaincy of Eoin Morgan. Even in the match against Punjab Kings, the idea of playing with four fast bowlers was out of the box approach as a captain of Eoin Morgan, Sunil Gavaskar raises the question.
“The other area that Kolkata need to lift their cricket is in the fielding for they dropped catches at critical times against Punjab. The selection also where they went in with four regular bowlers and divided the fifth bowlers quota between Venkatesh Iyer and Nitish Rana didn’t make sense and that proved just a tad expensive,” Gavaskar further added.
Some poor selection and injury to player like Andre Russell created problems for Kolkata Knight Riders in the tournament. While Kolkata will have to win both the matches from here if they want to make it to Playoffs one more time.
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