Bowlers, more than batsmen, have let down Kolkata Knight Riders

On paper, the defending champion Kolkata Knight Riders are the same team that won it all last year. They have even found a place this season for Eoin Morgan, one of the best finishers in the sport (he couldn’t get a game last season). Yet they are languishing in the bottom third of the table, and will likely miss the playoffs altogether.

Their coach, Trevor Bayliss, has blamed the team’s batting for letting them down. But that doesn’t tell the whole story. The bowling has fallen off considerably too e.g. Laxmipathy Balaji had the team’s best economy rate last year, giving away just 5.40 runs an over. This season it is up to 8.39 and he has already bowled more overs.

In T20 cricket, small margins have a bigger impact because of the compressed nature of the format. An extra 12 runs to the opposition is often the difference between winning and losing. They have also suffered in the death overs, with Balaji in particular leaking runs – 18 against Kings XI and 12 against Chennai Super Kings.

Against CSK, Dhoni hit the last ball off Balaji for six. KKR ended up needing 19 from their last over to win – had that last ball been a dot ball for the sake of argument - 13 off the final over alters the scenario significantly.

The importance of a good final over was emphasised by Chris Morris, who bowled the last over to KKR in that game. He was facing Morgan and Yusuf Pathan, two batsmen capable of find the boundary with ease. But Morris, bowling pinpoint yorkers, kept them to four singles.

The difference extends across the bowling ranks. Last season KKR had four bowlers with an economy rate under seven. This season they have just one – Sunil Narine. They are also conceding four more runs per wicket than they did last year (26.16 to 22.11) and half a run more per over (7.67 to 7.16).

The downturn in bowling fortunes could have something to do with the absence of Wasim Akram, who stepped down from his role as bowling mentor for personal reasons. While Brett Lee has filled his mentoring shoes, Lee has also been part of the squad, splitting his duties and responsibilities. The pitch at the Eden Gardens has also changed thanks to the BCCI’s handling. It is not the slow track it was in 2012, which allowed the likes of Narine, Iqbal Abdullah and Shakib Al Hasan to flourish.

The batting does bare some of the blame, of course. Despite fine individual performances from Gautam Gambhir and Manvinder Bisla, the openers have not clicked together. The average partnership at the top has been 20.50 compared to 38.47 last season. And while everyone’s favourite punching bag is Yusuf Pathan, he is actually scoring faster this year with roughly the same average. It is Jacques Kallis who has seen the biggest slump – his average has dropped from 25.56 to 18.60 – and his strike rate is an anemic 103.91

Yet in a season that started out with scoring lower and slower than usua l, and with the BCCI choosing to prepare more sporting wickets, it is the lack of a cutting edge with the ball that has hurt Knight Riders so much more.

All stats courtesy Rajneesh Gupta