The Chinks in the Knight's Armour

The seventh edition of the Indian Premier League begins, amidst massive controversies, on the 16th of April in Abu Dhabi. While this cricketing extravaganza is always in the news, this year it has been mostly, if not completely, for the wrong reasons. Hence the cricket enthusiasts cannot wait for the tournament to begin and for cricket to make the headlines, rather than the sickening match-fixing allegations.
While all the cricketing gurus and experts vary in their opinions of pre-tournament favourites and contenders for the play-off berths, one common evaluation is visible- and the Kolkata Knight Riders’ fans won’t like it.
KKR has always been one of the bigger franchises of the IPL, and not necessarily for their tournament results. They have arguably the most popular owner in Shah Rukh Khan and easily the biggest stadium- the Eden Gardens. The brand value of this team has been way ahead of any of it’s rivals in the commercial arena. Yet, sadly, apart from the fifth edition in which they were the champions, their performances in the IPL have been disappointing. A regular name in the bottom half of the points table, the KKR faithfuls have been left asking for more almost everytime.
In this year’s auction they must have hoped for better times ahead. Yet at the end of it, it’s not entirely inconceivable that KKR once again failed to match the expectations.
Here is a team which is perhaps the most balanced, on paper, but what they lack is dearth of world-class match-winners. In captain Gautam Gambhir, Jacques Kallis, Robin Uthappa you have quality batsmen, Morne Morkel, Vinay Kumar, Sunil Narine and Piyush Chawla bring variation to the bowling and all-rounders Yusuf Pathan and Ryan ten Doeschate add the extra dimension. However, you see an alarming lack of game-changers in the team, apart from Gambhir and Narine.
Kallis, at 38, is not getting any younger. Yusuf Pathan often has more jokes on the internet than the runs against his name. Robin Uthappa and Piyush Chawla can be dangerous on their day but you cannot put them in the world-class category.
New faces Andre Russell, Chris Lynn and Pat Cummins are all quality talents but can they deliver a match-turning performance when the chips are down?
The Royal Challenegers Bangalore are considered the favourites this time and you don’t need to be a genius to know why- in Virat Kohli, Chris Gayle, AB de Villers and Yuvraj Singh they have players who are capable of turning a match on it’s head in a space of 10 balls.
In a tournament which has produced it’s fair share of individual brilliance (McCullum, Gayle, Murli Vijay, Sohail Tanvir to name a few), one only hopes that Kolkata Knight Riders’ strategy to build the tactically perfect team does not come back to haunt them in yet another season of lip-smacking IPL cricket.