IPL 2018: Piyush Chawla on the nature of Eden Gardens pitch

What’s the story?

Ahead of IPL 2018, all eyes will be on the different pitches all around the country.

According to Piyush Chawla, the relaid pitch at the Eden Gardens in Kolkata has been assisting the spinners, which will be great for his side as they have three quality spinners in Kuldeep Yadav, Sunil Narine, and Chawla himself.

"He (Kuldeep) is bowling really well,” he was as quoted by www.kkr.in.

He further added that there will be extra pressure on the young man as he will not be as raw as he was in the previous season, which will increase the weight of expectations on him.

The Details

Chawla also spoke about Sunil Narine and said that he teams up perfectly with Narine and that they together hunt in pairs, which gives the team a great boost.

He also identified the fact that teams have now started playing the West Indian with a lot more caution and this will allow Kuldeep and him to pick up wickets on a more regular basis.

The leggie also added that the KKR bowling attack is replete with wicket-takers and that taking wickets is one sure way of restricting the opposition from piling up huge scores.

In case you didn’t know…

Kolkata Knight Riders will enter this season under a new captain in Dinesh Karthik and with plenty of new faces.

However, their core remains the same with Piyush Chawla, Kuldeep Yadav, Sunil Narine, Chris Lynn, and Robin Uthappa.

What’s next?

For all the optimism, much will depend on how the players turn up for KKR as they have faced a lot of injury concerns and their bowling stocks took a hit when Mitchell Starc was ruled out of the competition.

Author’s take

It will be interesting to see how the team responds to Dinesh Karthik as the new leader and how the new players turn up for the new environment.

Also, how the team fares in the tournament will be largely dependent on how the bowlers turn up, much what Chawla has assessed.