Daniel Vettori, the head coach of Sunrisers Hyderabad, has downplayed the Kolkata Knight Riders’ dismal start with the ball, claiming that seasoned spinners Sunil Narine and Varun Chakravarthy are still a serious threat and that their IPL encounter in Kolkata on Thursday will be a “battle” against them.
Since being sent to cleaners by South Africa at the T20 World Cup in February, Chakravarthy has lost his rhythm. He appeared mediocre during a wicketless session against the Mumbai Indians.
Since KKR failed to defend 220 in their IPL debut match at the Wankhede, Narine has also failed to find his typical sting.
As they return home, KKR’s limited pace attack—Harshit Rana and Akash Deep are out, and Matheesha Pathirana is still awaiting fitness clearance—will once more rely heavily on their spin twins.
“In terms of KKR’s spin bowlers, I think there’s an immense amount of respect around those two and what they’ve done for the franchise, what they’ve done for their country, so in no way will we be taking them lightly, even if they didn’t have their best day in the last game. They’ve proven themselves time and time again, particularly at this venue, so the battle against them, those two tomorrow, will be one of the key aspects of the game,” PTI quoted Vettori as saying in the pre-match media interaction.
The game will take place on the same pitch where New Zealand defeated South Africa by nine wickets last month in the T20 World Cup final, chasing 170 in just 12.5 overs.
Although KKR would prefer to have their spinners step up, Vettori believes the pitch might not provide much turn, but it might help with strokeplay.
“Maybe hold would be a better description than spin,” he said, expressing surprise at the grass cover.
“It’s obviously got a lot of grass on it, more than we anticipated, but I think it’s the same surface they used for the semifinal, South Africa-New Zealand, and that was a fantastic wicket. So, generally over the last few years, the surfaces over here have been amazing, and obviously the size of the ground and the outfield means it’s generally high-scoring. So, we probably could have another run-fest on our hands for both teams.
“I think it’s a good surface. There’s a little bit of grass on it. We’ve seen over the last few years at Eden Gardens that there hasn’t been a huge amount of spin, and the scores have been high, and that’s due to the size of the ground and how quick the outfield is, so I mean, we don’t think so, but we can always be surprised, and I think both teams will be prepared for that scenario.”
Additionally, Vettori supported Ishan Kishan, the team’s stand-in captain in Pat Cummins’ injury-plagued absence. In their first game, Kishan made an impression with a captain’s knock of 80 off 38 balls.
“We see Ishan, as you saw by his performance in the first game, he loves leadership. I think it can have a real positive effect on his batting and keeping, and as he gets to understand the group and the dynamics, he’s going to put his mark on it, and I have no doubt that he’ll be a very effective leader for us,” he said.
Cummins is only anticipated to be available in the second half of the season, and Vettori acknowledged it was a significant loss.
“Yeah, I mean, Pat’s proven himself for a long period of time as one of the best captains in the world, and so he’s obviously a loss. Most of it’s due with his bowling, in terms of how effective that can be for us, and understanding conditions, and then he’s a very experienced captain.
“We’re fortunate enough that he’s been around the group, and he’s been able to have conversations with Ishan around his style and how he wants to go about it, and Ishan’s been highly successful in his captaincy career so far. So, whilst it can be slightly different, we don’t look at it as a negative at all,” he said.
England all-rounder Brydon Carse is also absent from SRH due to a hand injury.
“Carse probably unlikely for tomorrow, he hasn’t quite recovered from his hand injury, but we will give it up until the last minute to make a decision around that.”
