Bowling - Kolkata's Achilles' Heel

The Kolkata Knight Riders have had a catastrophic second season in the Indian Premier League, and that's just me being polite. However, as you already would know, it was a disaster waiting to happen, more than anything else. While the other teams kept a low profile, practiced hard in the nets, and worked out the balance of their side, KKR couldn't even come to a conclusion on who their captain would be. Or did they?

Conspiracy theorists went all over town proclaiming that Brendon McCullum's ascendance to captaincy was pre-planned, and was Buchanan's plan all along. Apparently Ganguly, considered to be "too old" for Twenty20 (Despite being the franchise's top scorer and most economical bowler last season), didn't fit into the big Aussie's scheme of things anymore, and the coach used his multi-captain theory only as a way to soften the blow for Dada, and his infinite fans in Kolkata. The team's preparations, and the cricket side of things, were totally overshadowed by this controversy, and it seems that the team hasn't recovered since, with their only victory being thanks to two English gentleman who have confused spectators like no other over the past decade.

The post-mortem of the outright failure of the most glamourous team in the IPL could go on and on, so I'll cut a long story short and look at a few numbers, and explain why I think Buchanan and co. have left their thinking caps in Australia. Mashrafe Mortaza, Bangladesh's star cricketer, was bought for a whopping $600,000 at the 2nd IPL auction, after a long bidding war with King's XI Punjab, which led people to believe that KKR really wanted this player. Five months on, the Bangla Tiger (Fake IPL Player reference) is yet to make even a single appearance for the team, and is reportedly very frustrated with how things stand at the moment.

Buchanan explained the bowling all-rounder's exclusion as a part of their "batting strategy", as they wanted to strengthen that area of their game. The table speaks for itself when it comes to gauging how much that strategy has actually worked, but not once have Buchanan and his men shown any pro-activeness, creativity, or even an intention of re-thinking their strategy. While KKR's batting has been decent in most games, the team's bowling is, as the English would put it, pure bollocks. I looked up a few numbers, and here are the total number of wickets each team in the IPL has taken thus far. Note that I've discounted all rain-curtailed innings, and that all the stats hence forth are updated up till 13th May.

(Total Wkts, Wkts/Inn)

DD - (64, 7.11)
CSK - (60, 6.66)
RR - (63, 6.3)
DC - (68, 6.18)
MI - (57, 5.7)
KXP - (49, 5.44)
RCB - (48, 4.36)
KKR - (40, 4)

What these numbers do is bring to light one of the main reasons why KKR is playing a rather lonely IPL, with no team even near it in the table, and also why Delhi reign at the top. The Knight Riders have gathered a miserly four wickets per innings in the 10 innings they've bowled, which is why they haven't been able to defend even a single total they've put up on the board. The glaring example of why they're faltering this year was the last game against fellow-strugglers Bangalore, when Shahrukh's men couldn't even defend 173, despite having their opposition on the mat at one stage. "Strike Bowler" Ishant Sharma went for 40 runs in his four overs, including 19 in his last over, which essentially turned the game in favour of the Challengers.

Meanwhile, the batting, which was appalling in a select few games, has been competitive most of the time. KKR have chased only four times this season, beating Punjab once through the D/L Method, losing to the Rajasthan Royals in the Super Over after scoring 150/8 to tie the game, and scoring 95 all out and 139/6 against Mumbai.

While batting first, their scores have been:

101, 123/8, 139/6, 153/3, 154/3, 173/4

Clearly, at least four of those scores are competitive, and in South Africa, defendable. To add to that, I'll also put forth some more numbers. This time, it's the average runs scored by every team when batting:

Runs/Innings

CSK - 166.77
DC - 150.45
DD - 150
KXP - 147.5
MI - 144.2
RCB - 141.54
KKR - 136.33
RR - 130.6


To be honest, this isn't the most accurate of statistics, as the team batting second can only score as much as they're required to, but still, it does give an idea of the fact that batting isn't KKR's biggest weakness. In fact, Semi final contenders and defending champions Rajasthan Royals have managed the feat of finishing below KKR in this table!

Meanwhile, here are the total wickets lost by every team per innings:

(Total Wkts Lost, Wkts Lost/Innings)

DD - (42, 4.66)
CSK - (51, 5.66)
MI - (59, 5.9)
KXP - (61, 6.1)
KKR - (58, 6.44)
DC - (73, 6.63)
RR - (69, 6.9)
RCB - (78, 7.09)

Kolkata find themselves in 5th position in that list, unbelievable for a side so far behind the rest that people forget it's still competing in the tournament! Again, it suggests that the batsmen are showing a lot of responsibility while batting, even though they aren't particularly explosive. But they're still batting out the 20 overs, and putting up competitive scores for their bowlers to defend.

However, the team has faltered repeatedly, due to the lack of penetration in its bowling. This IPL is being touted as the "Bowler's IPL", and the key to winning games, especially when defending a total, is early wickets, which brings me to the biggest difference between KKR and the rest - Wickets taken in the first 6 overs.

Here are the total number of wickets taken by teams during the first 6 overs of the innings:

(Total Wickets taken, Wickets taken/Innings) in first 6 overs.

RR - (24, 2.4)
DD - (17, 1.88)
KXP - (17, 1.88)
DC - (19, 1.73)
CSK - (15, 1.66)
MI - (16, 1.6)
RCB - (14, 1.27)
KKR - (7, 0.7)

This is the most glaring difference between KKR and the rest, and something that should actually convince the coaching staff of the team's bowling deficiencies. After a long time, changes were made in the last game against Bangalore, but they were changes that made no sense whatsoever. The team's highest run-getters, Brad Hodge and Morne Van Wyk, were replaced by David Hussey and Angelo Mathews, whereas Ajantha Mendis came in for Moises Henriques. What happened to Mashrafe Mortaza and Charl Langeveldt? Did Shahrukh pay $600,000 just for someone to warm the bench? With all due respect to Mendis, he's not ideally suited to this form of the game. Even Langeveldt is known to be a superb bowler at the death, and one who is capable of picking up wickets. But the team management continues to make obscure decisions, and prefer someone like Mathews, who could hardly hit the deck with the ball, to a wicket-taking bowler such as Mortaza.

With three games remaining, the least the Kolkata Red Riding Hoods (As one friend calls them) can do is prepare for next year, and gather an idea of what their first XI would look like next season. Also, if Buchanan, who is constantly on his laptop, looks up the numbers (which he ought to), hopefully he'll realize that his so-called strategy is all bogus, and holds no substance.

It might just happen that even after bringing in Mortaza/Langeveldt, KKR lose, as they've got a one heck of a talent for it, but the team needs to show some intent to change things, as nothing has worked up till now, and because the current scenario is only embarrassing the most passionate cricket lovers in the country.