IPL 2021: "On a different tangent altogether" - Aakash Chopra slams KKR team selection

Aakash Chopra criticized Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) for their team selection after their five-wicket defeat against Punjab Kings (PBKS) in IPL 2021 on Friday. With Lockie Ferguson unavailable, KKR brought in Tim Seifert. They ended up going into the match with all-rounder Venkatesh Iyer as their fifth bowling option.

The lack of bowling options eventually cost the Eoin Morgan-led team as Punjab Kings were able to chase down the 166-run target, despite some late drama.

Aakash Chopra said that KKR are "on a different tangent" as they went against the obvious option of replacing Ferguson with someone who can bowl. KKR instead picked a top-order batsman, only to play him down the order.

"KKR are on a different tangent altogether. Lockie Ferguson is not available, and Russell is anyway out. So what should you ideally do? Play a bowler, right? But they say no, we’ll play a batsman. You play Tim Seifert, who is a wicketkeeper, who is an opener. You don’t have place for him at the top of the order and you end up playing him after Dinesh Karthik. Where do you play him?" Aakash Chopra asked.

Chopra questioned why KKR did not go for options like Shakib al Hasan and Ben Cutting, who have been warming the bench for them.

"You have Shakib al Hasan on your bench. If you don’t like him for whatever reason, you have Ben Cutting. You don’t like him either so you play Tim Southee, but you don’t even get him to bowl either the 19th or 20th over, and you drop a lot of catches too, so in the end, you have nowhere to go, nobody else to blame," he said.

Aakash Chopra criticises KKR strategy of chopping and changing death bowlers

Aakash Chopra was critical of how KKR used their bowlers, especially at the death. He criticized their decision to drop Prasidh Krishna after he bowled one bad death over against the Chennai Super Kings. Chopra also condemned the decision of playing Sandeep Warrier for one match before dropping him as well.

"Whatever team you have picked, for the 20th over you have Venkatesh Iyer and for the 19th you have Shivam Mavi. In the previous match you played Sandeep Warrier at the death, in the match before that you played Prasidh Krishna. If this is how you’re going to treat the players, changing one after the other in every match, it shows there are certain people who are indispensable and certain people who are dispensable," Chopra said.

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KKR are currently fourth in the table with 10 points from 12 matches. Their qualification now depends on the Mumbai Indians dropping points after their defeat to PBKS.