Kolkata Knight Riders captain Shreyas Iyer admitted his team failed to timely asses the conditions in Chepauk which resulted in a below par batting show against the Chennai Super Kings.
Batting first, KKR recovered from an early jolt to finish the Powerplay at 56/1. However, the Ravindra Jadeja took three wickets in the space of eight deliveries to derail KKR innings and they never recovered.
Eventually they managed 137/9, a target that hardly bothered CSK who stormed to a seven-wicket win with 12 deliveries to spare. The defeat was KKR’s first of IPL 2024 after they started their campaign with three wins in a row.
“We fell a little short in assessing the wicket. Phenomenal start in the powerplay but we couldn’t capitalise on it, we lost consecutive wickets and weren’t able to assess the conditions quickly because it changed completely after the powerplay,. Scoring runs on this wasn’t easy,” Sheyas said after the match.
CSK bowlers made good use of the conditions with plenty of off-cutters and slow bouncers to keep KKR batters in check. Jadeja and Tushare Deshpande took three wickets each while Mustafizur Rahman took two wickets.
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Shreyas credited CSK bowlers for exploiting the conditions well but added that the pitch wasn’t easy to bat on and it changed dramatically after the end of Powerplay.
“Obviously they (CSK) know their conditions pretty well and they bowled according to their plans. It was a bit tacky especially even the hard hitters when they came in to bat it wasn’t easy to go for them right from the first ball. Personally, felt the wicket changed tremendously after the Powerplay. We were trying to construct our innings. It didn’t go according to the plan but great learnings, we will introspect,” he said.
“As I mentioned, the wicket completely changed after the powerplay. We were in a pretty comfortable place at the start and we thought 160-170 would be a great score. That was out plan but when you lose wickets, it’s difficult to carry forward the momentum,” he added.
Shreyas said he’s glad that KKR have endured a poor show with the bat early on in the tournament and they can analyse what went wrong and come back stronger.
“We have to go back to the drawing board and see to it we learn from whatever wrong we did today. It’s just a matter of one match and one innings. I am glad it happened at the start of the tournament. We go back, introspect and come back stronger,” he said.
KKR will now play their next five matches at home.
“When we go back, we know our own conditions pretty well. We played one game. Important to stick to the present and make the best use of the situation,” Shreyas said.
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