Kolkata: Dinesh Karthik’s leadership skills have come under scanner after Kolkata Knight Riders’ five back-to-back defeats in the ongoing IPL but coach Jacques Kallis said that there has been no discussions on removing the under-fire captain.
“No. We haven’t discussed it, nor it had been brought up. So now there’s been no talk about that,” Kallis said when asked about a possibility of a shake up like Rajasthan Royals where Ajinkya Rahane was removed for non-performance.
“Hopefully, he (Karthik) can get in and get us some big runs. That will certainly mean a lot to the team and as much as he wants to do it,” the South African great said of his skipper, who averages a dismal 16.71 from nine innings this season. However it is learnt that the team’s principal owner Shah Rukh Khan had called the top players to Mumbai.
The Bollywood superstar sounded emotional in a tweet following their loss to Royal Challengers Banglaore at Eden Gardens on 19 April. “I feel it’s only fair for KKR to do something in return for @Russell12A, like winning a few before the season ends,” Shah Rukh had tweeted.
Asked whether the team met SRK in Mumbai, Kallis said: “I have not chatted to him since the guys have been in Mumbai. In fact, I think DK went home for a day as well. So we will catch up and have a debrief and plan away going forward again for the next game. Asked about Shah Rukh’s unhappiness, Kallis said: “We all want to perform a little bit better. Yeah, I think everyone’s in that space where we just want to get up and play better cricket and get back on winning ways. Losing certainly isn’t fun.”
While foreign players like Andre Russell were training in Kolkata, Karthik along with Shubman Gill and Kuldeep Yadav trained at the KKR academy in Mumbai. While news from the team management was about giving players a break, the question remained as to why they were training if they have been told switch off for a few days.
“We felt the guys needed a break. Guys are given freedom to do what they want to for the next couple of days. It’s has been a disappointing couple of games for us so we thought that guys can go and do what they want. Go home or some guys felt they wanted to have some practice in the middle which we couldn’t get here,” he said about their training in at their academy in Mumbai.
“It’s about getting the guys refreshed and coming back ready for the game and just trying to be mentally up for the game again,” Kallis’ answer sounded far from convincing.