KKR's batting never got going in their defeat against GT
Former Royal Challengers Bengaluru batters Cheteshwar Pujara and Aaron Finch were baffled by Kolkata Knight Riders’ batting performance against Gujarat Titans as they slumped to a 39-run loss at the Eden Gardens.
Chasing a sizeable target of 199, KKR batted at less than 8 Runs Per Over and never looked like beating GT.
Only Andre Russell batted at a strike rate of 140 for his 15-ball 21 while others such as Ajinkya Rahane (50 off 36 balls; 138 SR), Sunil Narine (13 off 10 balls; 130 SR) and Venkatesh Iyer (14 off 19 balls; 73) brought down the scoring rate.
At one point, the pair of Rahane and Venkatesh didn’t score a boundary for 36 deliveries which cornered the rest of their batters who swung for the fences and lost wickets in a heap.
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Pujara was heavily critical of Venkatesh who was tame against spinners R Sai Kishore and Rashid Khan by dabbing the ball for singles. The former Chennai Super Kings batter felt that there was no push from the coaching department during the Strategic Time Out.
“I didn’t know when the Time Out was. I know as a batsman you can knock around when the conditions are challenging, but when you have a Time Out, you make another strategy with the coaches. I think Venkatesh didn’t play the role he was supposed to play, but was he told to knock around when Rashid was bowling? Not sure what the message was,” the Saurashtra batter said on ESPNCricinfo.
Former Australia captain Aaron Finch didn’t mince his words against Venkatesh’s batting as he said that the lack of intent from the left-hander was ‘mesmerising.’
“There’s intent in hitting boundaries. You can’t hit a six or a four if you don’t try to. If your first instinct is to knock it on the leg-side and run a single, you are doing nothing. The lack of intent is just mesmerising,” the T20 World Cup winner said.
Monday’s defeat took KKR to seventh in the IPL 2025 with three wins and five defeats. Meanwhile, GT solidified their top position with sixth win of the season and are on 12 points, two more than Delhi Capitals who are set to face Lucknow Super Giants at the Ekana Stadium in Lucknow on Tuesday.
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