How KKR pulled off the heist and what ails KXIP

At the start of the 15th over of Kings XI Punjab’s 165 chase, with 113 on the board, another century-old opening position between KL Rahul and Mayank Agarwal and the 10 intact wickets, it was just a question of when, not if. . Slow but steady, the Punjab were well on their way to breaking their four-game losing streak. Yet somehow they drowned again and found defeat. Their sixth in seven games, effectively relegating them to the killjoy spot for the remainder of IPL 2020.

We take a look at where the game turned, how Kolkata Knight Riders found another strange route to victory, and what happens to KXIP:

Sunil Narine and Prasidh Krishna bring out the unthinkable

With their season partnership in the second century, Rahul and Agarwal offered treatment similar to the opposition that KXIP had been subjected to for most of its 40 bowls in the previous two games. It helped their cause that the KKR bowls lacked penetration at first and missed the duo’s line and lengths in shape. And that Andre Russell injured his knee with problems after catching Rahul in the second over, leaving KKR with a short bowler hat. Karthik admitted that he later decided to put his money on Narine again.

Even at 115/1, the game was out of reach for KKR. Agarwal’s loss was offset by Nicholas Pooran, who beat Kamlesh Nagarkoti by two limits and a six at 16 as a continuation of his previous hit. But Narine changed his lackluster performance against Pooran (54 balls for 83 runs with no success in all T20s) when KKR needed him most. And with that, the game.

In a rush to get this over with, and you can’t blame him on a well-established, and so sedated hitter on the other end, Pooran exposed his stumps and swung wildly across the line, only to see his leg stump spin. Prabhsimran Singh, with only three IPL caps to his name, was only able to handle a single of the final ball in the rest of the most that gave up just two.

The most impolite cut of all was Prasidh Krishna’s penultimate over bowling, where Karnataka’s pacemaker conceded just six and broke the KXIP pattern window under the pump and more importantly left Narine 14 to fend off two Batters who hadn’t faced a ball yet.

“They took the chase really deep and kept us out of the game most of the time … But we just held on. We believed that if we could get a plot or two at some point, we could push them. Credit to Sunny [Sunil Narine] and Prasidh [Krishna] – the way they came back at that stage and created the opportunities. And the way that Varun [Chakravarthy] bowling too. So overall it was a good bowling effort, Karthik said after the game.

“[The plan was] to try to give KL Rahul a single and put the other batter on strike and pressure him. And I think Prasidh did it wonderfully. Even Sunny showing her expertise. “It’s not easy for a spinner to bowl in death overs, but the way he did it was really good for us,” Karthik added in relief.

It was not until this point that KXIP’s slow and steady approach seemed controversial.

Does KL Rahul’s new role as presenter hurt KXIP?

Even if he’s astonishingly consistent, it’s his strike rating column that has garnered the most attention this season. In his three years at KXIP, the drop in Rahul’s strike rate has coincided with his first season as captain. Does the knowledge of a slim batting order weigh you down?

A visible pattern in KXIP’s hitting this year, especially in the absence of Chris Gayle at the top, has been Agawal assuming the role of aggressor as Rahul drops anchor and seeks to carry his bat. Today’s 115-race booth was no different.

While Agarwal showed much more intention, Rahul was happy to play the side kick, punishing fumbles and rotating the shot generously. It didn’t seem like a bad strategy to begin with, since the surface had two steps. But the playing field had diminished as the game progressed and consequently when the starters applied, KXIP found itself in a much better position late in the power play compared to KKR’s 2/25.

But they couldn’t move on. With the introduction of the turn, racing dried up as Rahul slipped back into his wicket preservation mode. His 74 came from 58 deliveries and fifty from 42, while Agarwal made a quick 56 of 39 balls. It eventually led to a situation where wickets of set hitters in rapid succession exposed the inexperienced No. 4 from KXIP and a failed finisher to a steep selling price with very little margin for error.

Breaking innings of batting

It was right after the last loss, against SRH, that Rahul brushed aside concerns about its low strike rate, calling it “very, very overrated.” When they return to the drawing board tonight, KXIP will realize that the numbers can be misleading, that their inability to dictate the pace of the game when they were at the top was an impending disaster masked by a century-long partnership.

“We just lost [too many] windows at the end. It wasn’t easy for new hitters to come in and score [from ball 1]. We lost too much ground at a crucial moment and we had to pay for it, “Agarwal admitted after the game.

The curious case of Glenn Maxwell and KXIP’s faulty batting order

Maxwell came to the UAE after a Player of the Tournament performance in the UK, helping Australia win the series 2-1 against the hosts after an international hiatus of nearly six months. And let’s be clear: This Punjab administration has a lot of faith in Maxwell’s destructive abilities. That explains why despite his meager bat returns (48 runs in six innings before today, with an SR of roughly 95), KXIP has offered him a long rope.

What doesn’t make sense, however, is that if Maxwell is the designated finisher in this lineup, and backed to deliver despite repeated failures, why did KXIP stop him today? At the 18th, against someone like Narine, KXIP threw a capless hitter on Prabhsimran into the pressure cooker situation, rather than the likes of Maxwell and Mandeep Singh.

A logical reason for this move could be the confidence with which Prabhsimran hit, in the same position, in the last game against SRH regardless of his short tenure. The other could be to avoid the possibility of Maxwell directly facing Narine, who has the wood on the Australian in their IPL matchups. However, at that fragile point in the game where they needed 21 of 16 balls, it made little sense to send an inexperienced bat before a winner of the game where they spent INR 10.75 Cr.

With the exception of the starting pitcher, KXIP’s batting order has lacked stability. To begin with, there have been too many changes in terms of what their top six are and as a result Karun Nair and Sarfraz Khan are now outside the eleven. Maxwell has hit between No. 3 and 5. Despite his enterprising 27 against CSK, Mandeep was not retained in a single drop. Even after his game-changing 89 and dragged Delhi Capitals into the Super Over from a winning position, Agarwal was not preferred to continue. With their batting depth already compromised, whether due to unavailability or pick calls, that confusing batting order and decision making on top of that only hurts KXIP further.

In the 13-year history of IPL, only once has a team reached the playoffs with just six wins to its name. Statistically, it’s still not that bad for KXIP. However, realistically, they find themselves in the must-win zone during the second half of their campaign, struggling to live another day.