Gautam Gambhir is coming back to help the Kolkata Knight Riders after not leading them for six years. He’ll be a mentor for the team in the upcoming IPL 2024.
The captain, who won the IPL twice, turned the team’s fortunes around after three bad seasons. Gambhir’s smart tactics led the team to the playoffs five times in seven years, winning in 2012 and 2014.
The team hasn’t been doing well since Gambhir left, even though they were runners-up in 2021. Now, Gambhir is moving from Lucknow Super Giants, where he was a mentor for the first two seasons.
The IPL 2024 player auction is scheduled for December 19 in Dubai, and teams need to decide on player retention by November 26. Gambhir faces a significant challenge as KKR aims to improve on their seventh-place finish this year.
Here are three aspects he must change upon his return to the Knight Riders for IPL 2024:
#3 Optimize the home ground advantage for KKR
Throughout his seven years as captain at KKR, Gambhir saw changes to the pitch at the Eden Gardens. However, this never affected the team combination because he always had bowlers suitable for the venue.
His philosophy was to assemble a team with diverse strengths to secure victories and, ultimately, tournament success. Unfortunately, KKR seems to have deviated from this approach, relying heavily on spin despite the Eden Gardens pitch not favouring it in recent seasons.
Nitish Rana criticized the Kolkata pitches in the last IPL, but with recent conditions resembling pre-2015 at the Eden Gardens, the team needs to align their pitch preference with squad selection. Gambhir, experienced in T20 strategy, is likely to focus on this for IPL 2024 planning.
#2 Irregularities in the selection approach
A team that is not stable tends to frequently alter its lineup. This was evident with KKR in the past two seasons. Conversely, a team appears settled when players’ roles are well-defined, and they get sufficient opportunities to excel.
This was a distinctive feature of the Knights under Gambhir’s captaincy. However, the franchise’s use of six different opening combinations in 2022 and eight in 2023 indicates confusion caused by their inconsistent selection policy.
The lack of a dependable Indian wicket-keeper-batsman has contributed, but for a middle-order featuring Shreyas Iyer, Rana, Rinku Singh, and Andre Russell to perform well, they need to establish a consistent opening pair. This should be a top priority for Gambhir as they aim to make things right before IPL 2024.
#1 Sort out the confusion with Narine and Russell
KKR has consistently built its strategy around the core of two key Caribbean players, Sunil Narine and Andre Russell. However, it’s evident that both have not been performing at their usual high standards for quite some time.
Narine, once a dependable bowler and pinch-hitter, lacks wicket-taking form and batting effectiveness. Russell’s fitness concerns persist, and his aggressive approach in challenging situations often backfires.
Looking at the numbers, in IPL 2023, Russell’s batting average was only 20.63, and he took seven wickets at an economy rate of 11.34. In the previous season, Narine batted ten times, scoring only 21 runs, and took just 11 wickets in 14 games with an economy rate just below 8.
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